Tories to bring back Grammar schools

[biotechpete]

I wonder how we could improve schools? I'm sure there are teachers working in state schools who contribute to SheffieldForum, and I'm confident that if they were minded to contribute to this debate they would tell us that they are already working in intolerable conditions.

 

Schools, all schools, need to be properly funded. Teachers need to be respected and cherished for their hard work and dedication, and pupils who experience difficulties need appropriate support.

 

More selection, more privilege, more divisive educational policy are absolutely not what is needed - points that many tories have been making today.

 

I have many friends who are teachers, from what they say, it seems is that parental involvement and behaviour are the primary problems in failing schools.

 

But I'm a passionate believer in increasing education spending, so you won't find me arguing on that count.

 

As I say I don't think a return to grammar schools are the answer but at the same time, I have friends who really struggled at comprehensives in very deprived areas, who say they would have loved the opprtunity of a grammar, as I had. There is a problem with a one size fits all system that holds back the brightest. There needs to be some answer to the issue of dumbing down, which I have noticed is happening with the students I teach. They aren't learning to the same level as I did, or to other systems in Europe or further afield. Our brightest and most knowledgable students are more than likely foreign ones.

 

---------- Post added 09-09-2016 at 23:37 ----------

 

the school system in the South is quite different to up here ... half their schools are private schools plus Kent and Buckinghamshire still maintain the grammar system.

since when have the Tories done anything that benefits working class people or The North..

 

The Govt should Nationalise all schools/education.. Grammar and Tech schools seems to be harking back to the past... still don't schools still have different education level classes/ forms these days ..

 

Trafford in Manchester has a selective system too, and actually the third best attainment levels in the country. And there is a plaque down the road from me commemorating the original site of Stockport Grammar, now a pretty good fee paying school, since the abolition of the grammar system here. This isn't a north south issue. It might be an old Labour, traditional tory area one. In Sheffield education is clearly a geographical and income based system though. The best education in Sheffield is not by any means open to all regardless of income.

Edited September 9, 2016 by biotechpete

[WestTinsley]

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---------- Post added 09-09-2016 at 23:37 ----------

 

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Trafford in Manchester has a selective system too, and actually the third best attainment levels in the country. And there is a plaque down the road from me commemorating the original site of Stockport Grammar, now a pretty good fee paying school, since the abolition of the grammar system here. This isn't a north south issue. It might be an old Labour, traditional tory area one. In Sheffield education is clearly a geographical and income based system though. The best education in Sheffield is not by any means open to all regardless of income.

oh right. I am aware that there is 1 grammar school area nr Manchester...(plus Lincolnshire)

.. the private school system is massive in the south.. .. ain't up here . everyone's skint peter

Edited September 9, 2016 by WestTinsley

[biotechpete]

I found this on spending, which I thought was interesting.

https://www.ifs.org.uk/tools_and_resources/fiscal_facts/public_spending_survey/education

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/10489522/OECD-education-report-comparison-tables.html

 

So even though it's falling we still spend among the largest amounts on education per pupil of any country in the world. But even at peak spending we were struggling outside the top 20 in attainment.

 

---------- Post added 10-09-2016 at 00:17 ----------

 

oh right. I am aware that there is 1 grammar school area nr Manchester...(plus Lincolnshire)

.. the private school system is massive in the south.. .. ain't up here . everyone's skint peter

 

Several private schools in bucks went bust when I lived there. There was no need for them in the grammar system. I don't know whether that's a good or bad thing

[tinfoilhat]

oh right. I am aware that there is 1 grammar school area nr Manchester...(plus Lincolnshire)

.. the private school system is massive in the south.. .. ain't up here . everyone's skint peter

 

That's a small minded view. And a wrong one.

 

---------- Post added 10-09-2016 at 01:02 ----------

 

I found this on spending, which I thought was interesting.

https://www.ifs.org.uk/tools_and_resources/fiscal_facts/public_spending_survey/education

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/10489522/OECD-education-report-comparison-tables.html

 

So even though it's falling we still spend among the largest amounts on education per pupil of any country in the world. But even at peak spending we were struggling outside the top 20 in attainment.

 

---------- Post added 10-09-2016 at 00:17 ----------

 

 

Several private schools in bucks went bust when I lived there. There was no need for them in the grammar system. I don't know whether that's a good or bad thing

 

Funnily enough I've been looking at private schools and a fair chunk have closed (or at the very least merged) since the crash of 2008, some of them old and established too. It's been a nationwide thing - at least one in Sheffield hit the buffers.

[El Cid]

I wonder how we could improve schools

 

As I understand it, back in the day when we had grammar schools, the problem was that the other schools got left behind.

 

All schools should be treated the same; but selection would diminish the choice of children living close to grammar schools.

[apelike]

It would appear that biotechpete favours privilege at the tax-payers' expense.

 

Why is it privilege?

[unbeliever]

I found this on spending, which I thought was interesting.

https://www.ifs.org.uk/tools_and_resources/fiscal_facts/public_spending_survey/education

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/10489522/OECD-education-report-comparison-tables.html

 

So even though it's falling we still spend among the largest amounts on education per pupil of any country in the world. But even at peak spending we were struggling outside the top 20 in attainment.

 

Progressive ideology in terms of teaching methods are material is holding us back.

[syne]

I don't think that there is much doubt that England's education system is falling internationally. We are talking a lot at work about the level to which new students and in turn new graduates have a training gap between where we need them to be and what they know/can do.

 

This intrigues me, what do you mean by the level you need them to be at?

I'm assuming your a business, are you expecting fully formed employees to emerge from uni or are the graduates really not deserving of the pass rate their getting?

I'm inclined to think that if uni grads aren't what they used to be then somethings changed, and the main things that have changed are fees, cradle to adult education and the cotton wooling of children. +their knock on effects.

 

Is it the actual educational subject knowledge that is lacking or is it a 'flaw' in the graduates ability to realise they need to acquire more than what is spoon fed throughout their schooling?

 

---------- Post added 10-09-2016 at 09:17 ----------

 

Progressive ideology in terms of teaching methods are material is holding us back.

 

Contradiction in terms there me love.

 

So we should teach in the method of which generation? The Victorians, the fifties? The 2015 Singapore style?

[Justin Smith]

Maybe there`s another thing that hasn`t been considered by those advocating Grammar schools. Traffic congestion and needless travelling. Kids will no longer be going to the nearest school (which they usually do now) most will be travelling to a school further away. And most kids get taken by car these days, as we all know.

 

Take our own case. We live in Oughtibridge, as it is now our lad would go to Bradfield, a school he can just about walk to. If this appalling reversion to Grammar schools takes place there`ll be 4 options :

 

1 - Bradfield becomes a Grammar and our lad goes there. If I exclude my idealistic opposition to Grammar schools that should be OK for us, but as I said, only if I exclude my strongly held view that the Grammar schools system is just wrong.

 

2 - Bradfield becomes a Secondary Modern and our lad passes the 11+. He`ll then have to travel Gawd knows how far to get to a Grammar.

 

3 - Bradfield becomes a Secondary Modern and our lad fails the 11+. It would be just as convenient as it is at the moment, but he gets branded a failure at 11 and he gets a worse education.

 

4 - Bradfield becomes a Grammar school and our lad fails the 11+. This is worst option for us. Not only will our lad be branded a failure at 11, and get a worse education, but he`ll have to travel Gawd knows how far to even get that.

 

Is it any wonder I`m absolutely seething about the very possibility that the Grammar system might be reintroduced, and, if, I`m honest, feel those who have not got kids and therefore not faced with this, have rather less right to determine what actually happens.

Edited March 7, 2017 by Justin Smith

[unbeliever]

Contradiction in terms there me love.

 

So we should teach in the method of which generation? The Victorians, the fifties? The 2015 Singapore style?

 

Idealogical progressiveness and actual progress diverged some time ago.

We should use the most successful methods from the rest of the world. China for example.