Grammar schools to return

Grammar Schools push kids further as they are in an environment with other clever children.
If they were in a state school, chances are that they accustom themselves to lower standards.

While I fully support streaming kids based on ability in particular subjects, I'm not sure that having tiers of schools makes sense. Most kids have specific subjects they're better and worse at, and students who have a particular strength in one or two subjects shouldn't be barred from access to teachers (and classmates) of an appropriate calibre in those subjects. Otherwise, we're consigning valuable people to second rate education based on their performance in subjects which will likely be irrelevant to their chosen field.

Why do you think so? Everyone I've seen say this has seemingly plucked the assumption from the air. I've seen no credible evidence of anything the people against grammar schools have said. Maybe there's a study I've missed.

Anyway, there's lots of fee paying schools already. There's also already grammar schools with 0 intention of ever becoming fee paying schools. It wouldn't affect anyone that doesn't want to pay.


As for your thing about peaking, I'd rather reward those who did well in year 6 than punish everyone. I disagree with it having anything to do with peaking anyway. The tests are often given in a way that anyone can sit them regardless of content covered. There's a reason why there's seperate tests instead of them using sats results.

They even adjust your marks depending on your birthday (an 8 month birthday advantage is more significant in kids than it is in young adults). They're made to be as fair as possible.


Plus it's misleading to say grammar schools failed.

http://www.mbctimes.com/english/20-best-education-systems-world

It's worth noting that every country ahead of us has no sort of grammar school ban as far as I'm aware.

Grammar schools also entice more teachers to qualify and come into the profession.

Imagine if you wanted to be a teacher. Would you teach a standard comprehensive school or a high achieving grammar school in your area, knowing that the government is going to pump more money into the grammar school system under Theresa May.

Put it this way... One of the reasons I got interviewed at imperial and UCL for engineering was the fact that i was at a grammar school... The interviewer said this himself.

Grammar schools are rare at the moment, only 1 or 2 in each borough in london. Now they are coming back I think its gonna reduce 'wow factor'.

Grammar schools also entice more teachers to qualify and come into the profession.

Imagine if you wanted to be a teacher. Would you teach a standard comprehensive school or a high achieving grammar school in your area, knowing that the government is going to pump more money into the grammar school system under Theresa May.

So we just give the less intelligent pupils worse teachers and let them rot?

Making good kids great is easy, making bad kids good is far harder. It takes far more ability to teach less academically intelligent children.

Exactly. Some people are absolute whizzes at maths but hopeless at English. Having streams is perfect.

Agreed on both counts here...in general better students are more self-motivated and less in need of guidance. It seems bizarre to throw more resources at them for, most likely, relatively small gains. In my school, a fairly poor comprehensive, those students who did well in standardised tests like myself ended up doing well academically anyway, in spite of the teaching not usually being good. Were we in a grammar school, we could have maybe added a few more A*s to the tally...so what? Surely the more grammar schools we have, the more tiered our education system becomes, and the more left behind the majority will be?

Conversely though I do think streaming has its place. This basically just refers to the fairly common practice of splitting classes into sets right? It would seem that it avoids allocating superior resources to people based on ability, but still allows people to move at a pace that is comfortable for them.

You think having a normal education is punishment? And you're happy for everyone else to have a worse standard of education, if you yourself are clever enough to get a better one?

It's an unfair and biased system and its everything i don't like about this uk Tory crony society there seems to be. Rich stay rich and poor stay poor isn't it just. Not everyone can afford the extensive 11+ coaching that we're seeing today, and thats only going to get worse...

A lot of state schools havemade huge improvements in getting their 5A*-C grades for most pupils, and all I see is those standards plummeting when the best students and the best teachers going to grammars.

As I said before, I think changing the state school system a bit is better than creating a whole load of grammars. Improve the way people are set in terms of ability and there is literally zero problem. Learning how to interact with a variety of people is important imho.

Yes, my school was a comprehensive and streamed and it was fantastic for both the weaker students and the stronger ones.

It meant that those who weren't so gifted when they were 11 had a chance to work their way up the sets, while allowing the strongest students to really be pushed.

It also catered well for students who were great at some subjects and poor at others.

I can't really see any advantages that a grammar school has over a streamed school.

Some streamed secondary schools are great sounds like your was however others are terrible.

My streamed secondary school dragged me down two sets because I didn't like P.E and also I was capable of set 1 maths, science and IT However my English was more like set 3 but you couldn't mix sets so it was either do all set one or all set 3

Similarly some grammar schools will be great, others less so.
I absolutely agree with the idea that top students should be pushed but I see no reason why this cannot be done within a streamed school which doesn't cast away those who had a bad exam day when they were 11.

Some children are late bloomers, I was. Some children are great at maths and awful at English, or great at Geography and terrible at science etc.

Having streamed sets for all abilities caters for that.


Your experience doesn't sound great but it sounds like bad planning rather than a bad concept.

I can't really see any advantages that a grammar school has over a streamed school.

You do realise that students can also do a 13+ right to start in a grammar at 13