Poll: Grammar Schools back on the table.

[bam0]

If they bring them back I would like to see an 11 plus and annual transfer opportunities up until the beginning of the 1st year of GCSEs and again for A Levels.

Is that one way or two way? You kick the lowest performers out of the grammar school?
One size doesn't fit all, but the very rational fear is that if grammars come back, so in effect do secondary moderns. The issue with education in the UK runs deeper and won't be resolved by this, but a lot of people will be in favour thinking that their precious child will be one of the ones that gets into a grammar school. Grammars shouldn't need to exist because all schools should be sufficiently funded to allow kids to reach their potential, as high or low as that might be.

 

[SpeedFreak]

Is that one way or two way? You kick the lowest performers out of the grammar school?
One size doesn't fit all, but the very rational fear is that if grammars come back, so in effect do secondary moderns. The issue with education in the UK runs deeper and won't be resolved by this, but a lot of people will be in favour thinking that their precious child will be one of the ones that gets into a grammar school. Grammars shouldn't need to exist because all schools should be sufficiently funded to allow kids to reach their potential, as high or low as that might be.

I would expect it would be largely one way as I would think it quite immoral to kick children out of a school and away from their friends simply because they were underachieving.

Your point on moderns is valid, the best teachers will want to teach the more capable children. Grammar schools could monopolise these better teachers.

 

[datalol-jack]

I'm just tired of the 'one more magic bullet', retrospective thinking.

 

[MeEsH BaKkA]

As someone who failed miserably at secondary school (mainly due to being an awkward little **** and not liking the education system/teachers who think they can talk down to you simply because they are the authority), I think the education system needs reform.

Some children simply aren't academic, not necessarily meaning they are less intelligent just some people thrive in that environment and others do not, I feel the current system not only stifles the education of the more academic pupils but also at the same time writes off the pupils who do not do so well under that particular regime of schooling.

Its a fact some people are better at certain things than others and I feel school policy right now is trying to homogenize the varying degrees of aptitude and and academic ability (in my opinion separate things which perhaps by 15 may not be evident) and ending up with a system that fails the most academic and consigns some equally "clever" students to fall by the wayside, which, is a disgrace. Dont get me started of the removal of competition between children in schools, tl;dr... how the ever loving **** as a child are you supposed to learn what you are and are not good at if you cant be better or worse than someone else????

I digress, grammar schools properly implemented and the current 'state schools' taking a more college approach to teaching and as **** as its current implementation a more vocational form of teaching and in my opinion, keep the core Science, Maths English and History... then how about teach trades??? Stuff these 'less academic' kids are actually going to use.

I know some people are just simply not very clever or cannot be helped, but from personal experience they'll cause less disruption to a hands on type of education than that of an traditional academic one.

Well.... that was a long winded too many beers rant Just to finish, I left school with my highest GCSE being a D, at one point the board of governors voted to expel me, not the suspended come back after a week but the "we are unable to continue to offer a place at this school for your son" kind of expelled. I'm 29 now, I own a fairly-ish successful electrical firm employing 16 people ad regularly take on apprentices from the local college and keep in contact with some of my old down to earth teachers.

Not sure if this makes any sense, had one beer too many!

 

[ReltonBFD]

I'm all for them, greatest thing for social mobility and it was taken away, you couldn't make it up.

I also think University could do with a change, loads of people getting in even people I know who are from the sharpest, it should only be for the brightest and best too both academically and technically. Too many ********** doing Art & Hospitality Degrees, and then proceeding to working in a coffee shop for ever.

 

[Lakeland]

As someone who failed miserably at secondary school (mainly due to being an awkward little **** and not liking the education system/teachers who think they can talk down to you simply because they are the authority), I think the education system needs reform.

Some children simply aren't academic, not necessarily meaning they are less intelligent just some people thrive in that environment and others do not, I feel the current system not only stifles the education of the more academic pupils but also at the same time writes off the pupils who do not do so well under that particular regime of schooling.

Its a fact some people are better at certain things than others and I feel school policy right now is trying to homogenize the varying degrees of aptitude and and academic ability (in my opinion separate things which perhaps by 15 may not be evident) and ending up with a system that fails the most academic and consigns some equally "clever" students to fall by the wayside, which, is a disgrace. Dont get me started of the removal of competition between children in schools, tl;dr... how the ever loving **** as a child are you supposed to learn what you are and are not good at if you cant be better or worse than someone else????

I digress, grammar schools properly implemented and the current 'state schools' taking a more college approach to teaching and as **** as its current implementation a more vocational form of teaching and in my opinion, keep the core Science, Maths English and History... then how about teach trades??? Stuff these 'less academic' kids are actually going to use.

I know some people are just simply not very clever or cannot be helped, but from personal experience they'll cause less disruption to a hands on type of education than that of an traditional academic one.

Well.... that was a long winded too many beers rant Just to finish, I left school with my highest GCSE being a D, at one point the board of governors voted to expel me, not the suspended come back after a week but the "we are unable to continue to offer a place at this school for your son" kind of expelled. I'm 29 now, I own a fairly-ish successful electrical firm employing 16 people ad regularly take on apprentices from the local college and keep in contact with some of my old down to earth teachers.

Not sure if this makes any sense, had one beer too many!

This is exactly what UTCs are about, although they are non selective as they should be.

You do the core English, maths, science, engineering (for example) for 6 hours a week, then say geography and French.

Students get time for enrichment, projects with employers and contextualised learning in subjects that link to industry.

 

[ReltonBFD]

Give Daily Politics from yesterday about 18 minutes in, Andrew Neil addresses the real problem with education in the UK and takes Lucy Powell for a ride.

 

[Destination]

Northern Ireland is full of grammar schools, we have better results than the English for most sections of the community.
There is nothing inherently wrong with grammar schools.

 

[moon man]

What happens to the children that don't make it into a grammar school?

this happened to my daughter back in west yorkshire ,ended up at the local comprehensive with something to prove maybe, but shes doing her phd at ucl now after excelling at warwick uni

 

[Ian13]

I'm torn, actually, no I'm not - Grammar schools are a bad, elitist idea, pandering to Conservative nostalgia & ideology.

Instinctively I'm inclined to think it's much like described by the left, Grammar schools are a way of subsidising private education for the middle classes. There are a couple of good articles today in the Guardian about Grammar schools, one from someone who went to one which highlights the social divide, the other actually with a specimen 11 plus.

OTH when I went to a (pretty bad I now think) comprehensive in the 70s, there was streaming by ability anyway. It was a mess, there were plenty of ******s in the top classes who were more interested in goofing around than learning, but I suppose everyone was at least in the same school, sharing the same funding.

Mostly I think the idea of sitting an exam at age 11 which then has so great an impact on your future to be pretty repulsive. Especially if you look at one of the exams, & realise how even a little private tuition (beyond the means of many) will greatly increase chances of a pass.

 

[Irish_Tom]

I'm not fundamentally opposed to Grammar schools, but the way they are implemented is the key. The 11+ system is unfair, and a system of continuous assessment throughout Primary school would be better.

However, I think setting (or streaming) within comprehensives is a better system. It allows for the movement between sets as a child progresses, without the huge upheaval of moving schools.

I also challenge the idea that comprehensives ruin 'good' children by mixing them with 'bad' children. If that was true, comprehensives wouldn't produce straight-A students, which they clearly do.

It's just not as black-and-white as some people in this discussion make it sound.

One argument against setting is that mixed ability classes can improve outcomes for less able children. If there is a disruptive child or children, they are in the minority. The rest of the class won't encourage their antics and if they continue, they get dismissed. In a bottom set class, with lots of disruptive children, very little learning takes place and it's basically a childminding exercise.

From a teacher's perspective, a mixed ability class is more effort to teach, because they have to plan the lesson to span the highest to the lowest ability. In a setted environment, they only have to differentiate between a small range of ability for each class.

Unfortunately some teachers don't put the effort in, and this is where mixed ability classes can settle on an average middle ground. However, I would say this could be solved with better teacher training and better teachers, rather than changing the whole system by reintroducing Grammar schools.

 

[Lakeland]

Core subjects are almost always in sets and every class must have differentiated learning, although it's already been said that the wider the ability, the wider the range of differentiation, some subjects would find this easy to deal with, others like maths it would be a big problem as the differentiation is likely to be completely different topics.

As we are aware of with a certain politician and his pet pig - bad behaviour is not just caused by students who are 'poor' or 'rough'. More able students are just as capable of causing disruptions in classrooms, sometimes more so because of their intelligence.

We can help to reduce the disruptions in lessons and raise attainment by increasing the quality of teacher training, reducing workloads so people [who could be amazing teachers] are not put off by the profession and making pay more appealing so the entry is higher (and paying for this by reducing the top end of the salary).

All of these things are possible but no, the answer is grammar schools which are simply going to pull away good staff from traditional secondary schools and leave them with the rest. It is nothing but an elitist idea that is emotively driven by politicians and most likely aimed at securing more votes.

This is just more political football that is going to mess up the education system in our country instead of helping it to evolve based on sound data/research. You could have all the people in the know telling the government this is a bad idea and they will simply carry on regardless.

Education should be ran by independently of political parties in my opinion. I have no issues with all parties having an input, but the current system we have of constant change to the detriment of high quality teaching is getting out of hand.

 

[Irish_Tom]

^^^ Couldn't agree more. ^^^

 

[Meridian]

There is nothing inherently wrong with grammar schools.

It's not the grammar schools that people have a problem with - no-one doubts that they tend to be pretty good schools. The problems are with a system which includes them.

1) Because the pro-grammar school people tend to go either very quiet, or into full-on meaningless platitude mode when you ask: what happens to the children who don't get into one? There are ten mentions of grammar before anyone says: secondary modern. That's the elephant. because as soon as you split the system, you split children into successes and failures. You can add caveats about re-streaming, transfer, and any stuff you like about how other types of school ore fine, but employers simply don't believe you. All the good jobs will go to those who came from grammars. We know this because it happened last time - some of us are old enough to remember.

2) It effectively writes off a large group of schools. The money will pour into the grammars, and SMs will go without. Because all the middle class children are at the grammars, and middle class parents are much better at getting their voices heard by politicians. We don't want a system where some schools are better than others, we want a system where all are good. Money should flow towards the bad schools to improve them, not towards the ones which are already good.

3) At the very heart of this argument is a simple bit of class warfare. To understand it, replace every instance of "grammar school" with "middle class school" and every instance of "secondary modern/vocational school" with "working class school" and the whole argument is a lot clearer. Because grammar schools are mainly supported by the middle classes, who want their children taught way from the riff-raff (thanks, Daily Mash). That was how it worked the last time. The old system collapsed because too many middle class children were going to secondary moderns, which were supposed to only be for the plebs. The middle classes don't mind a small number of working class children, especially if they are from "deserving poor" parent(s), because the middle classes always fell good when they help poor people. But not too many. But they don't believe that there will be many because: i) most middle class people think IQ is related to income, and ii) because they can afford to game the system by buying tutors - just like they did last time.


I'm one of the posters on this forum who is old enough to remember the full scale 11-plus exams. I remember the huge amounts of extra tuition, mock tests etc, the richer parents could afford. I remember the stress it caused in children who know that going to secondary modern was to be thrown on the scrapheap at 11 year sold.

Again I find myself saying: parents do not want a choice of school, they want all schools to be good. And before anyone asks: yes, I support streaming, but only within schools, where employers can't base decisions on your stream.

 

[marmalade]

wrong post

 

[Irish_Tom]

I did not understand a single thing in that last post.

 

[Deleted member 77746]

You spin me right round, baby
Right round like a record, baby
Right round round round
You spin me right round, baby
Right round like a record, baby
Right round round round

 

[Dolph]

It's not the grammar schools that people have a problem with - no-one doubts that they tend to be pretty good schools. The problems are with a system which includes them.

1) Because the pro-grammar school people tend to go either very quiet, or into full-on meaningless platitude mode when you ask: what happens to the children who don't get into one? There are ten mentions of grammar before anyone says: secondary modern. That's the elephant. because as soon as you split the system, you split children into successes and failures. You can add caveats about re-streaming, transfer, and any stuff you like about how other types of school ore fine, but employers simply don't believe you. All the good jobs will go to those who came from grammars. We know this because it happened last time - some of us are old enough to remember.

2) It effectively writes off a large group of schools. The money will pour into the grammars, and SMs will go without. Because all the middle class children are at the grammars, and middle class parents are much better at getting their voices heard by politicians. We don't want a system where some schools are better than others, we want a system where all are good. Money should flow towards the bad schools to improve them, not towards the ones which are already good.

3) At the very heart of this argument is a simple bit of class warfare. To understand it, replace every instance of "grammar school" with "middle class school" and every instance of "secondary modern/vocational school" with "working class school" and the whole argument is a lot clearer. Because grammar schools are mainly supported by the middle classes, who want their children taught way from the riff-raff (thanks, Daily Mash). That was how it worked the last time. The old system collapsed because too many middle class children were going to secondary moderns, which were supposed to only be for the plebs. The middle classes don't mind a small number of working class children, especially if they are from "deserving poor" parent(s), because the middle classes always fell good when they help poor people. But not too many. But they don't believe that there will be many because: i) most middle class people think IQ is related to income, and ii) because they can afford to game the system by buying tutors - just like they did last time.


I'm one of the posters on this forum who is old enough to remember the full scale 11-plus exams. I remember the huge amounts of extra tuition, mock tests etc, the richer parents could afford. I remember the stress it caused in children who know that going to secondary modern was to be thrown on the scrapheap at 11 year sold.

Again I find myself saying: parents do not want a choice of school, they want all schools to be good. And before anyone asks: yes, I support streaming, but only within schools, where employers can't base decisions on your stream.

Do you think employers and universities don't factor in schooling if it's comprehensive? Really?

 

[SquirrelMadness]

Are grammar schools like private schools but who allow students in on abilities as opposed to money?

I think I enrolled in one before, and failed all the tests ended up just going to a middle-class normal school.

Middle-class normal school is still better than "working class" normal school, neither are private nor grammar.

Grammar schools might encourage parents to pressure their kids to be educated better.

So long as funding isn't priorotising grammars I don't see why people complain. There will still be middle-class normal schools like the one I went to.

 

[No1newts]

People are obsessed with the idea makes that failure to reach grammar makes people a failure which is just plain ******* stupid and amusingly elitist from those accusing those "pro" the idea of being elitist.

Why is being moved into an environment where you will learn better, in a way that suits you more, into a trade which makes a **** load of money a bad thing?

For those against answer me why you are so against the idea of someone being helped to learn in s way that suits them and maximises their chance of success? Why are you all so hung up on the idea that academic intelligence is the only sign of success? Because it isn't and to suggest so shows some extreme ignorance or missing the obvious.