Tories to bring back Grammar schools

[Obelix]

The purpose of our education system is to educate our kids to be as useful as possible in the workforce. .

 

Woah just one moment there. Is that really the case, quite apart from should that be the case. Most schools teach the National Curriculm, which has two aims,

 

Aim 1: The school curriculum should aim to provide opportunities for all pupils to learn and to achieve.

 

Aim 2: The school curriculum will aim to promote pupils' spiritual, moral, social and cultural development and prepare all pupils for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of life.

 

I don't think you can say it's purely to be as useful as possible in the workforce as it covers much more than that.

 

---------- Post added 13-09-2016 at 15:35 ----------

 

I don't think we can avoid that completely. We need as many kids trained to a high standard in STEM as possible or we're a bit screwed as a nation.

The kids do need to understand that there's a difference between not being the best at school and being some kind of "failure". They can and should, still make a very positive contribution and have a good a rewarding lie. The key to that is to find something useful they're good at and get very good at it.

 

The parents as well need to realise that not everyone grows up to be an astronaut etc....

[tinfoilhat]

Woah just one moment there. Is that really the case, quite apart from should that be the case. Most schools teach the National Curriculm, which has two aims,

 

Aim 1: The school curriculum should aim to provide opportunities for all pupils to learn and to achieve.

 

Aim 2: The school curriculum will aim to promote pupils' spiritual, moral, social and cultural development and prepare all pupils for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of life.

 

I don't think you can say it's purely to be as useful as possible in the workforce as it covers much more than that.

 

---------- Post added 13-09-2016 at 15:35 ----------

 

 

The parents as well need to realise that not everyone grows up to be an astronaut etc....

 

And if it that's the case its failing miserably. Report after report comes out showing school and university leavers haven't got enough basic skills for the workplace.

[Staunton]

That sounds extremely dangerous. There is rightly pressure on teachers to maximise the quality of the job they do for our kids. Part of the reason we're in this mess right now with education is that some big decisions have been made more for the benefit of teachers than the kids.

 

Will you please stop implying that I agree with you when I've stated the reverse. I realise that you're implying and not stating, for the most part, but it's very bad form a probably falls foul of the rules.

 

There is indeed a gulf between us. The idea that front line staff in any discipline should be put under pressure is simply sickening.

[Robin-H]

There is indeed a gulf between us. The idea that front line staff in any discipline should be put under pressure is simply sickening.

 

You think it is 'sickening' that front line staff in any discipline should be put under pressure? What utopia do you live in!? Does that extend to doctors, or nurses, or the police?

[Justin Smith]

It's you that insists on branding those that don't get in to grammars 'failures!'

 

When I was at school half a life time ago all the kids that were in the top set for maths were in the top sets for the other subjects too. I don't know of a student that was bottom for one and top for another. It didn't happen. It's not impossible but I couldn't give you an example from my peers.

 

I`m sorry but it did, and, I assume, does, happen. It happened to me. I was in the top set for Physics, but the second one down for Maths. I can`t remember if we were streamed for English, but if we were I wouldn`t have been in the top set for that (despite the fact, by some definitions, I`m an author now ! ? ! ). I wasn`t in the top set for French either, about the middle I seem to remember.

[syne]

The introduction of the comprehensive system for a start.

 

 

Right you think teachers should be paid according to how easy their classes are to discipline. It's certainly an idea

 

I didn't say that and it would be insanity to try that out. There is usually incentive for going to a poor school though, and iirc many private school teachers were on a lesser wage to their public equivalents (that maybe wrong I'd have to check)

 

I'm struggling to see how introducing comprehensive education makes a teachers job easier or is for their benefit.

 

Having a former grammar take all comers means a much more diverse cohort and the issues that go with that. Lowering the grade standards may coincidently make a teachers job easier but I doubt that was the motivating factor.

[Justin Smith]

Its amazing how many people share that view - but nothing happens. I think a lot of parents aren't concerned because they KNOW tarquin will go on to be a doctor or a lawyer.

 

Good to see you back sgt.

 

As you were.

 

Bearing in mind how hard it is to get a good tradesman (and it`ll get worse if we leave the EU) I wouldn`t mind my lad being a builder or plumber. Just so long as he was (that impossible to find) a very good one, with the attitude of a craftsman in fact and also professional. He`d probably make more than I do, and eventually start employing people ? Having said that, I`d want him to do as well at school as possible before he made that decision. Education isn`t just about passing exams it`s about training your brain to think, expanding your brain power.

Edited September 13, 2016 by Justin Smith

[the_bloke]

There is indeed a gulf between us. The idea that front line staff in any discipline should be put under pressure is simply sickening.

 

If staff aren't under any sort of pressure, how do you know what they are capable of and measure their ability to perform the job?

 

Pressure comes from internal sources in employment as well as external, even in the public sector.

[Santo]

I`m sorry but it did, and, I assume, does, happen. It happened to me. I was in the top set for Physics, but the second one down for Maths. I can`t remember if we were streamed for English, but if we were I wouldn`t have been in the top set for that (despite the fact, by some definitions, I`m an author now ! ? ! ). I wasn`t in the top set for French either, about the middle I seem to remember.

 

Katie Price is an author now....

 

The 11+ is one test. I don't know much about grammars but if you pass the 11+ I assume the classes at grammar school are still streamed? Just the bottom at a grammar will be shifted along from the bottom at a 'secondary modern,' no?

 

Did you feel like a failure for not being in all the top sets? Were you called a failure by your teachers and parents for not being in all the top sets?

[L00b]

I think a lot of parents aren't concerned because they KNOW tarquin will go on to be a doctor or a lawyer.

Neither profession is the mark of success which it used to be, and that's been the case for a good while now.

 

Takes much more than getting the academic/professional qualification badge in this day and age (it always did of course...but, I feel, never more so than nowadays).

Good to see you back sgt.

Seconded

 

Where's Mr C btw? (I'm not missing him, honest...just being nosy )

Exactly the point I was making on the last page where I said we need society to stop treating vocation roles as somehow lesser than academic ones.

That's not going to happen in a hurry, I'm afraid.

 

Logically and commonsensically, because the core grading pole is earnings, the job market sets earnings, and what is rare is expensive. Putting your comment in context, it's still much harder and takes far longer to train as e.g. a doctor than as a teacher or nurse, whereby a doctor is still far rarer than a teacher or nurse.

 

I've not mentioned solicitors out of professional courtesy, but there's grades of rarity for them (likewise predicated on length and depth of training) just the same, that explain why the many solicitors in 'routine' fields of legal practice (conveyancing, family, criminal) frequently earn less than the much fewer solicitors in highly-specialised fields (M&A, tax, IP).

 

And IMHO, whilst it's too early to predict reliably, at late primary school or early secondary school stage, whether a kid is a better fit for a professional career or a vocational one, it's the right time at which to assess and further develop the intellectual aptitude and work ethic that will eventually decide (besides "Life, its opportunities and its knocks") which.