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Grammar Schools?

stephen bennett said:
This is basically Government policy!

Not all selection is a bad idea—streaming within schools for some subjects can be a positive experience for all children especially because they can move between streams if their skills and ambitions change. But streaming isn't required for forms, PE, sex education or Citizenship, for example.

Selection at 11+ ties that child into either an acdemically-focussed education or 'the rest', whatever that is. If a child struggles academically at a Grammar, they're stuck—unless they becomes a bully as at your school! If a child in the 11+ failures school flourishes at 13, there's no way they can move to a Grammar.

There are many advantages in mingling kids at all levels of achievement and backgrounds and many disadvantages in syphoning off the brighter middle-class children and teachers into a gated system.

We should be looking into making academic and vocational education of equal merit in comprehensive schools—something that the obsession with 'hard' subjects makes difficult. I heard Toby Young on Any Questions being appallingly patronising towards students who take non-academic courses, but we are just as in need of engineers, plumbers and those with other practical skills as we are of students that gain an A* in English literature. And the creative arts, much maligned by 'academic hegemonists', are amongst the most valuable contributions to our GDP.

Stephen
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The same Toby Young who left school with one O level in English Lit.
Eventually got 2 Bs and a C at A level
YET was still accepted by Oxford despite failing to meet their offer of 3 B grades!

You try applying to Oxbridge having resat exams today, or getting such "shit" grades, as Young and his ilk would no doubt call them.
 
stephen bennett said:
This is basically Government policy!

Not all selection is a bad idea—streaming within schools for some subjects can be a positive experience for all children especially because they can move between streams if their skills and ambitions change. But streaming isn't required for forms, PE, sex education or Citizenship, for example.

Selection at 11+ ties that child into either an acdemically-focussed education or 'the rest', whatever that is. If a child struggles academically at a Grammar, they're stuck—unless they becomes a bully as at your school! If a child in the 11+ failures school flourishes at 13, there's no way they can move to a Grammar.

There are many advantages in mingling kids at all levels of achievement and backgrounds and many disadvantages in syphoning off the brighter middle-class children and teachers into a gated system.

We should be looking into making academic and vocational education of equal merit in comprehensive schools—something that the obsession with 'hard' subjects makes difficult. I heard Toby Young on Any Questions being appallingly patronising towards students who take non-academic courses, but we are just as in need of engineers, plumbers and those with other practical skills as we are of students that gain an A* in English literature. And the creative arts, much maligned by 'academic hegemonists', are amongst the most valuable contributions to our GDP.

Stephen
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^^^^
This
 
BTW,
There was bullying at my Grammar school. I suspect there is bullying in every school on the planet. The test is surely how it is dealt with?
 
Simon Vess said:
Was Harold Shipman average?.......lucky you not to have had him as your GP

Again your position shows a good deal of complacency


Simon
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I was at school with Harold Shipman. ( I may have let that slip in the past.)

I believe he had to re-sit his A levels in order to get into Med School.

Mull
 
Mullardman said:
BTW,
There was bullying at my Grammar school. I suspect there is bullying in every school on the planet. The test is surely how it is dealt with?
Click to expand...

Grayson, the School Bully in Tomkinson's School Days

"In return for not hitting any of the masters, the Head had allowed Grayson certain privileges, such as having unmarried Filipino women in his room, smoking opium, and having a sauna instead of prayers."

Stephen
 
Pete and Dud 'Six of the Best' (From 5:28)



[YOUTUBE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoxW6aGrlx8[/YOUTUBE]

Mull
 
At least when we have Grammar schools, compulsory smoking in pubs and hanging, we'll get decent satire back.

Stephen

PS: Have you noticed how many of the Conservative's policies are basically the UKIPs?
 
Mullardman said:
BTW,
There was bullying at my Grammar school. I suspect there is bullying in every school on the planet. The test is surely how it is dealt with?
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Back in the day this was badly. My girlfriend was bullied at secondary school by a gang of very brave sounding girls. The enlightened answer by the school was to remove her. I am sure that taught the bullies about the punishment you can expect from such actions.
 
fay spook said:
I replied to a similar question on the other thread but it has been asked again here.

Should be fit for everyone. It isn't and people suffer. The NHS does select on treatability. There are restrictions on some treatments for obese patients. Similar for smokers. Would you expect a heart transplant to go to a 90 year old or a 9 year old first? Horrible decisions but one you say we shouldn't select for. Have a think about the last example and tell me what you would do with the one heart.......? Remember you don't want a system that selects on treatability.

Yes we do want an education that is fit for everybody but how fit? Great for everyone or good for most people? We have limited resources, a confused existing structure and a job of teaching that isn't appealing. Now tell me how we get an education system that fits everybody?

Streaming is selecting on teachability. Grammar schools are also effectively streaming. You might have used the wrong word but I would hate there not to be selection based on teachability. If you don't you will get hugely mixed abilities in one class. If you teach to the average for almost half the students it will be too quick/hard, for the other section above average it will be too slow/easy. That is obviously wrong.

It also depends on how you define teachability, to get the most disruptive student back into classes and behaving, giving less able student a grasp of the fundamentals or a high flying student the chance to excel. All showing teachability but good luck to a teacher doing all this in one class.
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First, there might well be anomalies in Health care, but it still operates under the overriding principle of equal treatment for all. If there are processes that lead to the Obese and smokers not getting treatment, which you call selection, then that process, as justifiable as it might be, is undesirable. It is not a good thing. You seem to be saying that the selection process that denies treatment is a good thing in itself and should therefore be extended. I am not aware of 90 year olds being denied a heart transplant on the grounds of age, but even if they have, that does not make it a good thing and a good thing that should then be extended. You seem to be saying that 9 year olds make better recipients of a heart transplant than a 90 year old, which is possibly true, but, by analogy at least, you then seem to want to promote the process that led to that decision as a good in itself and extend it. If you think it's a good thing to deselect 90 year olds from Heart Transplants, why not 80 year olds? Why not 70 year olds? 60 year olds? Let's face it, the more people you deselect, the more heart transplants will be available for those who really deserve them, eh?

Second, streaming and selection are different things. There's lots of research that streaming isn't working, but you’re right, it's used in many schools. But it's different to selection. Selection in the context of grammar schools means separation, one group of children selected and the separated from the rest. It is this separation that seems to be important to many people; streaming within a school is not good enough, certain middle class parents do not want their kids anywhere near the great unwashed, which is why they're defending separation so aggressively. As you say, streaming goes on in many schools, and if streaming is OK, what's the problem? Send your kids to schools that stream. Your bright young things will be in a different set to those not so bright. But no, that's not enough, certain middle class parents want separation, segregation is some cases. And it is that separation that makes Grammar schools elitist and socially divisive.

The other problem with selection is the sense of failure it gives to those who failed the test. And regardless of the insensitive comments from some on here, those who've taken the test and failed, do feel that failure. If you increase selection, you increase the numbers not selected and increase the sense of failure. Some on here seem to think that's an infinite loop, but actually, it’s just a statement of the bleedin' obvious.

I have also heard others (not you fay spook) on here singing the praises of Toby Young's Free School, someone suggesting that the success of the non selective West London Free School somehow reflected the virtues of selection. I don't want to question that logic here, not least because there are other more serious questions that should be asked about the extra funding devoted to Free Schools. If you want evidence of that funding, you need look no further than the West London Free School’s own website where it boasts of small class sizes, and ask how it can afford small class sizes when, certainly in my area and in my bog standard comp, class sizes are growing alarmingly.

Now, if we’re talking about a system that promises to deliver small classes sizes across the whole system, then believe me, you'll have my full attention.

I don't have all the answers to your question about how to build an education system fit for everyone, but I do believe that small class sizes would be one hell of a first step.
 
ks.234 said:
Now, if we’re talking about a system that promises to deliver small classes sizes across the whole system, then believe me, you'll have my full attention.

I'm don't have all the answers to your question about how to build an education system fit for everyone, but I do believe that small class sizes would be one hell of a first step.
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Thanks for a good reply.

If I had a magic want for all this, I would be waving it all over the place.

I can't agree more with the bits I have left in above. The sorry thing is to get real excellence this is only one part. However I don't want to say the current education system is shot but middle age makes m cynical about many things including the future of education. This includes the devaluation of exams and their grades.
 
fay spook said:
Thanks for a good reply.

If I had a magic want for all this, I would be waving it all over the place.

I can't agree more with the bits I have left in above. The sorry thing is to get real excellence this is only one part. However I don't want to say the current education system is shot but middle age makes m cynical about many things including the future of education. This includes the devaluation of exams and their grades.
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Thank you for that, and I agree, the current education system is shot. One of the problems is that we don't have an education system, we have a multiplicity of education systems each driven by some sort of ideology. We don't need a one size fit all system either, we need a system with enough flexibility to meet a variety of needs, but surely that can be done, or at least done better, under an overall principle of a system fit for everyone
 
Spike said:
"devaluation of exams and their grades"

You really have no idea!!
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??????

I view this from the perspective that almost no one fails an A level despite them being some of the hardest exams. I saw a family member recently taking their GCSE maths a year early and passing. Surely they've only learnt part of the syllabus? They are at a Secondary Modern and are far from a math genius.
 
Well all that evidence must make it so. There has been no early entry for a few years so you must be right! The new GCSE maths course is basically three years.
 
stephen bennett said:
At least when we have Grammar schools, compulsory smoking in pubs and hanging, we'll get decent satire back.

Stephen

PS: Have you noticed how many of the Conservative's policies are basically the UKIPs?
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My girlfriend pointed this out to me earlier today.

The Tories clearly want to tap into the powerful "things were better in the old days" vibe that UKIP have exploited so effectively.

Keep calm and carry on!
 
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