El Cid Posted October 15, 2015 Author Share Posted October 15, 2015 How many of the "National Challenge" schools are Grammar schools? I am sure you can see that creating more 'excellent' schools, the remainder are sink schools. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JFKvsNixon Posted October 15, 2015 Share Posted October 15, 2015 We send our top young athletes, footballers etc to centres of excellence so that they can achieve their potential. Do you think they'd do better training with mixed ability groups? Why do Labour hate success? Why must they lower everything to the lowest common denominator? Look at how many Labour politicians send their kids to fee-paying schools. There really isn't argument against Grammar schools. Social mobility was highest when they were prevalent and has plummetted since they were abolished. Why should kids who want to learn and get on in life be prevented from doing this in the name of "inclusion" and "diversity"? If we were to accept your analogy, are you happy to write children off at the age of 11? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Happ Hazzard Posted October 15, 2015 Share Posted October 15, 2015 Make the sink schools better then. The Grammar schools aren't the problem. ---------- Post added 15-10-2015 at 21:43 ---------- If we were to accept your analogy, are you happy to write children off at the age of 11? Not at all. The poster I replied to on the last page had a mate who failed the 11+ yet still was able to go on to University and a good career. I don't see that having vocational training and leaving school to go to work as "failure", unlike so many schools today that just ignore kids that aren't academically inclined. Having Grammar schools doesn't necessarily mean having Secondary Moderns as they used to be. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JFKvsNixon Posted October 15, 2015 Share Posted October 15, 2015 Not at all. The poster I replied to on the last page had a mate who failed the 11+ yet still was able to go on to University and a good career. I don't see that having vocational training and leaving school to go to work as "failure", unlike so many schools today that just ignore kids that aren't academically inclined. Having Grammar schools doesn't necessarily mean having Secondary Moderns as they used to be. Ok, I didn't make my point clear enough. Children mature at different rates, so why should we be giving up, academically, on children by the age of 11. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LeMaquis Posted October 15, 2015 Share Posted October 15, 2015 Abolishing Grammar schools is about the worst thing Labour ever did. The Tories haven't brought them back though, have they? Grammar schools, to which only about a fifth of kids went, were a means of writing 80% of kids off at age 11. One reason the Tories and a lot of middle class parents oppose them is that having an education system biased in favour of just a fifth of children is going o alienate the other four fifths. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Happ Hazzard Posted October 15, 2015 Share Posted October 15, 2015 The Tories haven't brought them back though, have they? Grammar schools, to which only about a fifth of kids went, were a means of writing 80% of kids off at age 11. One reason the Tories and a lot of middle class parents oppose them is that having an education system biased in favour of just a fifth of children is going o alienate the other four fifths. Rubbish. Utter rubbish. How many of the 80% of kids that were in your words were "written off" went to Grammar schools? None? THEN HOW CAN THE PROBLEM BE THE GRAMMAR SCHOOLS?!?!? If you want to say Secondary Moderns were bad, say that. But the Grammar schools worked. The kids that didn't go got a bad deal. There was supposed to be a third kind of school in the Tripartite system, Technical schools. They never really happened in most areas. But again, it is in Labour's DNA to blame the thing that works and bring that down instead of addressing the thing that didn't work and taking steps to make that better. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan Ladd Posted October 16, 2015 Share Posted October 16, 2015 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? I am not qualified to deal with the specifics, its also over 50 years since I left education. That said, I do not know anyone who went to school at the same time as me who left unable to read and write. We also had a grip on history, geography and handicrafts. About 10%went on to university, there was a system where at 13 some could go to Technical school equipping them for various trades. My impression when speaking to young people today is that (and this is a generalization), they are not as literate or numerate, their knowledge of history and the other subjects I mention are very limited. I conclude that basic education has declined in standard over the last 50 years albeit the world has changed as have priorities in education. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
harvey19 Posted October 16, 2015 Share Posted October 16, 2015 The Tories haven't brought them back though, have they? Grammar schools, to which only about a fifth of kids went, were a means of writing 80% of kids off at age 11. One reason the Tories and a lot of middle class parents oppose them is that having an education system biased in favour of just a fifth of children is going o alienate the other four fifths. What a load of unsubstantiated rubbish. I presume you were not in education in the 1960s and so are talking without experience. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
El Cid Posted October 16, 2015 Author Share Posted October 16, 2015 I conclude that basic education has declined in standard over the last 50 years albeit the world has changed as have priorities in education. I do not share your pessimism, we have many more children getting good GCSEs and going to uni. But my objection to grammar schools is not their ability to educate, but selection. I live in a large town served by 3 large schools, if one was allowed to be a grammar school, and another a faith school, would some children be spending an hour per day walking to school? What if the other school wanted to be a faith school too, the parents of no faith would be discriminated against. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mossdog Posted October 16, 2015 Share Posted October 16, 2015 I failed my eleven plus! so did not go to Grammar school,mainly I think because Maths was the be all and end all of topping anything in those days! English was my subject,that's how my brain was wired! However I did go on to 5 years of vocational study at Wisewood (Prel and Prep), Granville college and Pond Street tech,now Hallam Uni.I had to do this in mostly my own time at nights except for additional 3 years 1 day a week release. This was a good system and governments are now realizing that Uni education for quite a number is going nowhere and are looking at vocational training once again. Interestingly, a number of my old school chums who passed their 11 Plus went on to do very little in life.I retired in my late 40s with no complaints. Education education is not the answer to everything like some would have us believe..........hard work and determination is more important I have found! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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