Tories to bring back Grammar schools

[BoroB]

My bold - your argument isn't rational. You are equating an 11 year old whose decision was made for them with adults who are in a position to make their own decisions. It makes no sense.

 

Re: failing schools, the point surely is to ensure as far as we can that there are no failing schools so that no-one has to choose (or have the choice made for them) that their child attends the failing one. This is the crux of the argument against grammar schools, i.e. that the very process by which they succeed necessarily creates other schools which fail. Comprehensives were created specifically to ensure that every child, whatever their background, could access a good standard of secondary education, which I think has largely been achieved.

 

All the evidence available shows that grammar schools make attainment less even. And the two most important words in the whole debate are these: private tutoring. Grammars will not end up taking the brightest and most able, even if it were desirable that schooling should be structured that way. They will take those kids whose parents could most afford to have them tutored to pass the entrance exam, it's called privilige and it belongs in history. That is how markets work and anyone who thinks markets don't work like that is either ignorant or delusional.

 

My argument is perfectly rational if you understand the fact that as well as Jeremy attending a Grammar school fifty odd years ago his son also attended one a lot more recently.

 

Adults made the decision when Corbyn junior, Jeremy's son, went to a Grammar school.

[Bob Arctor]

My argument is perfectly rational if you understand the fact that as well as Jeremy attending a Grammar school fifty odd years ago his son also attended one a lot more recently.

 

Adults made the decision when Corbyn junior, Jeremy's son, went to a Grammar school.

 

Which adult?

[apelike]

But it's exactly how it will work now.

 

I think that that idea is just political hype and mainly put forward by the likes of Labour and those that dislike the Conservatives. There is not a shred of evidence to back it up.

 

Think of all the middle class parents with money who move to the best catchment areas because they can. Ask yourself this: would a middle class parent with available money choose not to use it advance their child's educational opportunity?

 

With the shortage of prime housing I doubt many would move. Most middle class? that I know with available money would/do have their children privately educated. They will also have money put aside for their child to go to University.

 

---------- Post added 08-09-2016 at 22:04 ----------

 

The local grammar had gone by the time I started secondary school, but our school was the former local grammar if that makes sense.

 

Yes it make sense as the Grammar School my brother went to also was incorporated and became a Comprehensive.

[Bob Arctor]

I think that that idea is just political hype and mainly put forward by the likes of Labour and those that dislike the Conservatives. There is not a shred of evidence to back it up.

 

You can't provide evidence of what will happen, you just have to base it on what you know about peoples' behaviour. You've just pointed out that those with enough money get their kids privately educated. So, those with some money but not enough to pay for private education will... take their chances with the secondary modern? No! Pay for private tutoring to get Amelie and George into the grammar school, obviously.

[Robin-H]

You can't provide evidence of what will happen, you just have to base it on what you know about peoples' behaviour. You've just pointed out that those with enough money get their kids privately educated. So, those with some money but not enough to pay for private education will... take their chances with the secondary modern? No! Pay for private tutoring to get Amelie and George into the grammar school, obviously.

 

I believe May's proposals will have a quota on it so that a certain proportion of students attending grammar schools have to come from poor backgrounds.

[Bob Arctor]

I believe May's proposals will have a quota on it so that a certain proportion of students attending grammar schools have to come from poor backgrounds.

 

And will that proportion match the proportion of children from poor backgrounds or will it be less than that. Currently 98% of grammar schools have less than 3% of pupils from poorer backgrounds.

[Robin-H]

And will that proportion match the proportion of children from poor backgrounds or will it be less than that. Currently 98% of grammar schools have less than 3% of pupils from poorer backgrounds.

 

I don't know. Nobody, apart from perhaps a few people in Government, knows. I suspect it will more than the current figures, or else May wouldn't be highlighting it.

[apelike]

Currently 98% of grammar schools have less than 3% of pupils from poorer backgrounds.

 

As there are not many Grammar Schools about and most are down south in affluent areas the numbers are a bit meaningless.

[BoroB]

Which adult?

 

The son of Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the Labour party, went to a Grammar school.

 

Jeremy apparently did not want his son to go to a Grammar school. Jeremy's wife did.

 

The parental choice was a Grammar school.

 

The same parental choice that Corbyn wants to deny parents now.

[Anna B]

Originally Grammar Schools used to be the only route to University, as it was only the Grammar Schools that did the necessary examinations of 'O' and 'A' levels.

 

Secondary Schools simply didn't do academic qualifications, so it wasn't possible to go on to University (although some got there via night schools and work placements.

 

A place at University used to be an almost a guaranteed passport into one of the professions or at the very least a well paid (white collar) career.

 

As none of the above still holds true, I'm not sure we need to go back to Grammar Schools, although maybe the thought of an 11+ style exam with consequences might focus parent and pupils minds towards getting the very best from their education instead of mucking about. However now anyone from whatever school they go to can in theory go to University, although it is no longer the guarantee it once was.

 

Personally, I would rather we adapted the German model where practical and technical skills are valued as highly academic ones. But in hidebound, class obsessed Britain I can't see that happening any time soon. I'd also like to see some schools specialising in computer studies, programming etc.

 

Frankly it's a mess. Time marches forwards, the world has changed; the workplace is a very different place to what it once was. We have to have an education system fit for purpose which gives everyone a chance in a fast changing modern world. How that is to be achieved though, is hugely complex and isn't going to be fixed by looking back to the past glories of the old Grammar School system.

 

It's going to take a lot more than that.

 

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