Tories to bring back Grammar schools

[sgtkate]

I'm v torn on this. In theory Grammar schools should be absolutely the right thing, pupils selected purely on academic ability which no regard given to money, but in reality richer parents 'coach' their kids to pass the exams thereby skewing the system.

 

Could we not monitor kids performance over their entire school careers up to 11 and then allocate places based on that? Couldn't really 'coach' them to pass an exam that way.

 

However, society needs to change our views on non-academic jobs and qualifications. We still have a culture that rates a lawyer as above an electrician for example. If we can accept that all jobs and roles have a valid place in our society and stop pushing a purely academic agenda on every child then we might get somewhere. If a kid doesn't like academic subjects and isn't good at them, then why not offer a more vocation style of education which will get the very best of out of each child as an individual rather than assuming that maths and history works for everyone?

 

I was very lucky to get a scholarship to a Grammar school, no way my parents would have afforded it otherwise. The school I went to was almost the model of how I think Grammar schools should be run. It had more kids from 'poor' backgrounds than rich, so much so that the rich kids were the ones who got picked on for having to buy their place rather than being bright! School was funded hugely by charity donations from ex-scholars and rich benefactors so I accept that might not be plausible for every fee paying school. The school was Bristol Grammar if anyone wishes to look it up. No idea what it's policy is these days though.

[unbeliever]

I'm v torn on this. In theory Grammar schools should be absolutely the right thing, pupils selected purely on academic ability which no regard given to money, but in reality richer parents 'coach' their kids to pass the exams thereby skewing the system.

 

Could we not monitor kids performance over their entire school careers up to 11 and then allocate places based on that? Couldn't really 'coach' them to pass an exam that way.

 

However, society needs to change our views on non-academic jobs and qualifications. We still have a culture that rates a lawyer as above an electrician for example. If we can accept that all jobs and roles have a valid place in our society and stop pushing a purely academic agenda on every child then we might get somewhere. If a kid doesn't like academic subjects and isn't good at them, then why not offer a more vocation style of education which will get the very best of out of each child as an individual rather than assuming that maths and history works for everyone?

 

I was very lucky to get a scholarship to a Grammar school, no way my parents would have afforded it otherwise. The school I went to was almost the model of how I think Grammar schools should be run. It had more kids from 'poor' backgrounds than rich, so much so that the rich kids were the ones who got picked on for having to buy their place rather than being bright! School was funded hugely by charity donations from ex-scholars and rich benefactors so I accept that might not be plausible for every fee paying school. The school was Bristol Grammar if anyone wishes to look it up. No idea what it's policy is these days though.

 

Excellent post I must say.

Myself I went to a heavily streamed comprehensive. No idea how I would have fared at a grammar or even if I would have passed an 11+.

 

Perhaps you're right and a more reliable (if more complex) assessment is required to determine who goes to the selective schools than the traditional 11+ model.

If my opponents can take a break from their tendency to play the ball rather than the man, perhaps we can discus the matter.

 

Staunton please. There is no right-wing conspiracy to stealthily take from the poor and give to the rich. I don't believe that you want to hurt the education of our children and neither do I. I see no evidence that anybody in this discussion has an ulterior motive, we've just been exposed to different ideas and experiences and formed different provisional conclusions on the matter.

Edited September 13, 2016 by unbeliever

[biotechpete]

The principle is the same, and it works.

 

But stopping children from going to their local school is wrong.

 

---------- Post added 13-09-2016 at 10:59 ----------

 

 

Poorly performing Academies still have the same problem, how to recruit the best teachers.

How many teachers want to work in a school were many teachers have been assaulted or even killed.

 

Kids in my family (in Sheffield) couldn't get in to any of 3 local schools because of over-subscription.

 

---------- Post added 13-09-2016 at 12:00 ----------

 

I don't know for certain. I was hoping that this debate would help me determine as people would post studies, links and reason.

 

Mostly though we seem to be talking about other things and using grammar schools as a proxy for a wider political debate.

 

---------- Post added 13-09-2016 at 11:29 ----------

 

 

I suggest you put that idea back in the cereal box in which you found it.

Teachers have to have knowledge and understanding comfortably in excess of what they're teaching. Those teaching higher streams or at grammars need to be better at the teaching subject than those teaching at a lower level.

Before this idea turns around to bite you in the proverbial, let us agree that the best thing would be to keep grammar school teachers on the same pay and conditions as their comprehensive fellows. No?

 

Oh and don't think that I missed your twisting of 2-tier teachers' in the teaching profession into 2-tiers in the educational system by the way.

 

I posted data earlier on in the thread which was mostly ignored. I took some time to analyse the stats and my conclusion is that it is neutral or marginally advantageous but not significantly so. Best I can tell there is so much dogma surrounding the debate that nobody has properly studied the data. Nobody is much interested in it either.

 

---------- Post added 13-09-2016 at 12:17 ----------

 

I had a look for academic papers on the subject.

One here:

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=898567

Much of the research on comprehensive education in Britain uses the National Child Development Study (NCDS), a panel which tracks members of the 1958 birth cohort. The sample members entered secondary school in 1969, at a time when some LEAs in Britain had started to provide comprehensive schools already, while others continued to offer the traditional selective schools. Hence, the comparisons using the NCDS are essentially crosssectional. While Kerckhoff et al. (1996) claim that comprehensive areas differ little from selective areas, we find that comprehensive areas are systematically poorer, and have students

with lower previous achievement. A raw comparison of students attending comprehensive and selective schools is therefore not possible. Most previous studies rely on some form of a value added specification, where student performance at age 16 is a function of student 2 performance at age 11, the secondary school environment, and possibly other control variables.

 

This seems an entirely reasonably research design, particularly since the NCDS offers a large set of controls on student ability and family background. We demonstrate in this paper that this methodology is nevertheless unlikely to be completely successful in removing the selection bias between comprehensive and selective school students. The NCDS provides

test scores at ages 7, 11, and 16. It is therefore possible to run an analogous specification for student performance at age 11 on student performance at age 7, and the secondary school environment. Since students at age 11 have not started attending secondary school yet, the secondary school environment should have no influence on age 11 outcomes if the specification successfully removes the selection bias. This exercise is therefore a falsification test for the value added specification.

 

OLS value added specifications tend to lead to a small negative average effect of comprehensive schooling compared to selective schooling in our sample. We demonstrate that effects of a similar size or larger are obtained when using age 11 test scores as outcomes. This suggests that the methodology is unable to remove the selection bias between students

attending different schools. A more interesting finding of the previous literature (particularly Kerkhoff et al., 1996) may be that comprehensive schools tend to be equalizing, in that they lower the performance of the most able students, and raise the performance of the least able...

Edited September 13, 2016 by biotechpete

[El Cid]

Kids in my family (in Sheffield) couldn't get in to any of 3 local schools because of over-subscription.

 

Doesnt seem posible to me, I have just read Sheffields admissions policy.

 

https://www.sheffield.gov.uk/education/information-for-parentscarers/pupil-admissions/admission-policy.html

 

It will get worse if we have more grammar schools.

Edited September 13, 2016 by El Cid

[tinfoilhat]

Doesnt seem posible to me, I have just read Sheffields admissions policy.

 

https://www.sheffield.gov.uk/education/information-for-parentscarers/pupil-admissions/admission-policy.html

 

I will get worse if we have more grammar schools.

 

Why? Will grammar school places come at the expense of comprehensives etc or will there just be more places?

[El Cid]

Why? Will grammar school places come at the expense of comprehensives etc or will there just be more places?

 

The country have been through this before.

 

If your local school is a grammar school, and you are not bright enough, you will not get in, rich or poor.

[tinfoilhat]

The country have been through this before.

 

If your local school is a grammar school, and you are not bright enough, you will not get in, rich or poor.

 

You didn't really address the question though - just went of at a tangent. On the other side of the coin - Ill address yours - if you live closish to a grammar school but live in a bad area, you don't need to go to the crappy comprehensive if you're clever enough. You have a chance to break out.

[Justin Smith]

Most children live within minutes of multiple schools.

 

This is a joke right ? I`d have thought few was about 3, but we`ll call it 5 for the purposes of this exercise.

 

On foot, 3mph, you`d get about a quarter of a mile. The great majority of kids live more than a quarter of a mile from their nearest school, never mind their nearest Grammar or Secondary Modern (if they ever split up).

 

By car. I was in a Q this morning from Stockarth Lane to Leppings lane lights, I did less than one mile in about 10 minutes. And this WILL get worse if all schools are split up into Grammars and Secondary Moderns because, by definition, many kids will not be going to their nearest school,

 

By bus, not as many kids would get the bus these days compared with the 70s, not that that matters, the bus would be stuck in the same Q. Plus the child would have to walk to the bus stop anyway.

 

Why can't different streams go to different schools?

 

Because you`re limiting children`s options from a ridiculously early age and branding 75% of them failures. Furthermore different kids are better at different things, they might be in a higher stream for, say, maths, and a lower stream for, say English. So, I`d turn the question around, if the Comps are streamed, half the point of Grammar schools goes out of the window, particularly as they can be streamed by subject, not by school (for all subjects).

Edited September 13, 2016 by Justin Smith

[El Cid]

Because you`re limiting children`s options from a ridiculously early age and branding 75% of them failures. Furthermore different kids are better at different things, they might be in a higher stream for, say, maths, and a lower stream for, say English. So, I`d turn the question around, if the Comps are streamed, half the point of Grammar schools goes out of the window, particularly as they can be streamed by subject, not by school (for all subjects).

 

At the moment, 75% of Sheffield children go to their local school.

 

In my neighbouring area, a local grammar school became a free school.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2011/oct/10/fee-paying-versus-free-schools

[Justin Smith]

1 - A policy doesn't necessarily have to be in a manifesto to be implemented. Blair did it all the time.

 

I`m not saying you`re wrong, but can you tell me a major piece of policy, that could very well affect the great majority of people in this country, that Blair did this on ? Even if he did that still wouldn`t make it right, but non the less I`m interested to hear which polices you`re talking about.

 

* Not including something a policy that was required for due to circumstances changing since the last General Election

 

---------- Post added 13-09-2016 at 13:41 ----------

 

2 - The house price adjustment, if any, will likely be gradual. Those already in the catchments will presumably be happy with the investment they've made. The school population won't change overnight.

 

Believe me it will happen pretty quickly. A house is a huge and long term investment, most people, quite rightly, think about it very carefully and take along term view on it. Anyone with any sense, who can see that schools are slowly being split into Grammars and Secondary Moderns, will quite obviously not spend tens of thousands of pound more on a house just to get his kids into a good local school. That`s not such a problem for the buyer, but a huge problem for the seller.

 

---------- Post added 13-09-2016 at 13:43 ----------

 

Have you actually read the 2015 Conservative Manifesto? They said they wanted to ..."continue to allow all good schools to expand, whether they are maintained schools, academies, free schools or grammar schools"

 

Whilst I accept that this doesn't say that the Conservative would be opening new grammar schools, it does show that the Conservatives are in favour of grammar schools and would be happy to see them expand. It should not therefore come as a shock.

 

Oh I can quite confidently say it`s come as a shock to the great majority of people.

 

---------- Post added 13-09-2016 at 13:48 ----------

 

3 - That assumes that overall movement increases which is might not necessarily. It might cause congestion in Sheffield, but I doubt there would be much call for grammar schools in Sheffield anyway.

 

Your argument that introducing Grammar and Secondary Moderns will not increase the numbers of kids commuting to their school goes against all logic. But why do you doubt they`ll be much call for Grammar schools in Sheffield ? Are we not forgetting that the statistics prove that most parents have a totally unrealistic idea of their kids abilities* and, more logically, may not want them to get into (some) of their local schools.

 

* They must do for, apparently, over half of parents (or Grandparents or Uncles or Aunts etc etc) to be in favour of Grammar schools when only 25% of kids will get into them.

Edited September 13, 2016 by Justin Smith