First 'new' grammar school in 50 years

[El Cid]

England is to get its first "new" grammar school for five decades after it was agreed an existing school could build an "annexe" several miles away.

 

Weald of Kent school in Tonbridge will open a site in Sevenoaks, Kent - side-stepping a ban on new grammar schools.

 

Education Secretary Nicky Morgan said this was a "genuine expansion" of an existing school and not a change in policy on selection.

 

Dont Conservatives know the word, honest? This is a new school. Perhaps there will be a challenge to this, what are JC and his mates saying?

 

If they think these schools are a positive, let the Conservatives pass a bill in Parliament.

I think that they can be divisive, and I disagree with state schools selecting their pupils.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-34535778

[Berberis]

Great news. Comprehensive eduction fails to adequately support those who struggle and push those who excel.

[unbeliever]

England is to get its first "new" grammar school for five decades after it was agreed an existing school could build an "annexe" several miles away.

 

Weald of Kent school in Tonbridge will open a site in Sevenoaks, Kent - side-stepping a ban on new grammar schools.

 

Education Secretary Nicky Morgan said this was a "genuine expansion" of an existing school and not a change in policy on selection.

 

Dont Conservatives know the word, honest? This is a new school. Perhaps there will be a challenge to this, what are JC and his mates saying?

 

If they think these schools are a positive, let the Conservatives pass a bill in Parliament.

I think that they can be divisive, and I disagree with state schools selecting their pupils.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-34535778

 

Personally I think it the height of folly to try and get all kids to learn the same things at the same pace. Inevitably some are left behind and essentially abandoned, whilst others are falling well short of their potential.

In suitably large schools, the use of sets can accomplish the same thing, so I'm not clear why we need separate schools rather than a requirement to use sets.

[Happ Hazzard]

Abolishing Grammar schools is about the worst thing Labour ever did.

[unbeliever]

Abolishing Grammar schools is about the worst thing Labour ever did.

 

Perhaps you can tell me the advantage of the grammar/secondary modern system over a comprehensive which uses sets?

Some comprehensives don't use sets. That's as crazy as a bag of ferrets. But I would have thought that state could fix that rather trivially.

[Alan Ladd]

I went to a secondary school, many of my primary school friends passed the 11 plus and went to Grammar schools.

 

I personally feel that this system worked, those of us who went to secondary learned slower but thoroughly, I knew of none who could not at least read and write.

 

Many went into heavy industry and did very well, eventually going to further education and bettering themselves.

 

Those who went to Grammar School tended to go into the professions, Lawyers, Doctors etc many were highly successful, some less so.

 

All in all I felt that separation worked, allowed teachers to focus rather than generalise ending up with a better educated balanced populace.

[unbeliever]

I went to a secondary school, many of my primary school friends passed the 11 plus and went to Grammar schools.

 

I personally feel that this system worked, those of us who went to secondary learned slower but thoroughly, I knew of none who could not at least read and write.

 

Many went into heavy industry and did very well, eventually going to further education and bettering themselves.

 

Those who went to Grammar School tended to go into the professions, Lawyers, Doctors etc many were highly successful, some less so.

 

All in all I felt that separation worked, allowed teachers to focus rather than generalise ending up with a better educated balanced populace.

 

Don't sets within a single school achieve the same thing, but less crudely?

You might have a kid who belongs in the top set for maths, but the bottom set for english. Which school do we send this kid to?

[biotechpete]

Don't sets within a single school achieve the same thing, but less crudely?

You might have a kid who belongs in the top set for maths, but the bottom set for english. Which school do we send this kid to?

 

The biggest barrier to setting is that you require large schools to achieve the right number of sets with suitably similar abilities. In rural locations, children can travel for up to 2 hours on the school bus to get to a grammar school.

 

Even within grammar schools, which my teachers told me select the top 20-25%, there is still setting based on abilities. There were 5 classes in my year but the brightest students still weren't stretched.

 

Incidentally, most of the very brightest students came from poorer backgrounds and so under the comprehensive system would otherwise have been placed in one of the worst performing schools in the country.

[Berberis]

Don't sets within a single school achieve the same thing, but less crudely?

You might have a kid who belongs in the top set for maths, but the bottom set for english. Which school do we send this kid to?

 

To gain a place in a Grammer School you had to pass a test made up of four different disciplines. Reasoning-Verbal, Non-Verbal Reasoning, Maths and English.

[WalkleyIan]

A single test administered to 10 year old children (as most were at the test date) is no way to plan a child's entire life, education and future career. To say to a 10 year old you'll never be good enough to be a doctor or an engineer seems madness.

 

We have some rose tinted view of Grammar schools. Remember the vast majority of children didn't actually go to them. I was 1 of just 4 from my whole cohort in junior school who were sufficiently developed at 10 years old to get through that test one day in November 1974.

 

I had no concept of the enormity of that day till my mum cried on the day she heard Id passed as I was the first boy on my side of the family to achieve it.

 

My good mates, many of whom I thought were just as academically able as myself all felt they had been put on the scrap heap, and treated their secondary education in that way.

 

The idea that Grammar schools were a better education is flawed. I saw bullying, kids who clearly weren't able enough to do "O" Levels, let alone "A" levels, disruptive children in classes and anything else you would see at a secondary modern.

 

I have a close friend who also failed that test when he was 11 (October birthday). Luckily he just about hung on at the secondary modern to get some “O” levels. He took himself to 6 Form College, got 3 science A levels al straight As, a degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from Nottingham and is now a lead Engineer for CISCO in Canada. A perfect example of how the selection system fails children and ultimately fails us all.

 

As for a modern comprehensive, I think the fact that King Teds got 9 kids into Oxbridge this summer says a lot about their standards.