Grammar schools to return

That's why grammar schools filter out the weaker candidates so that the remainder are all on a fairly level platform. Grammar schools cater for individual needs also (Grammar Schools aren't just bigoted, middle-class exam factories you know! )

Although I do agree with your first statement.

How can allowing intelligent poor students to attend good schools with high quality teachers be a bad thing?

At the moment a lot of them would have to attend poor deprived schools with poor teaching, which will clearly reduce their potential whilst the rich kids get to get good teaching at private schools.Poor students can often perform worse due to the bad behaviour often seen at poor schools, which can lead to them joining the bad behaving pupils and not working hard for their education.

Clever poor students are often held back in state schools, like my teacher once mentioned how she could form a small group who could sit the exam earlier and she had to move the exam till later as the class was not grasping the concepts(I remember factorising quadratics that my teacher had to teach again as I was the only one who could do it as I could do it in my head).

I often feel that the school system at the moment is practically useless for average/low achieving students, who forget virtually everything they learned at school.Introducing more Grammar Schools can allow those who fail the 11+ test(or equivalent) to go into schools more suitable for them were they will learn more functional skills(budgeting, basic Maths and English rather than Algebra and Trigonometry) more relevant to them.While the clever students skip all this and go onto more advanced topics like Calculus in Secondary School.

Such a system would probably help stop the dumbing down of education we have seen since new Grammar Schools were banned from being created, with new GCSEs only being sat by those in Grammar Schools with those in other schools achieving functional/vocational certificates(similar to the 1960s I believe).

I do think it is important that we allow some transition between Grammar Schools and whatever the other schools shall be called, as students shouldn't feel trapped in a particular school and should feel if they work hard they can earn the right to be moved up to Grammar School and badly behaved students in Grammar Schools can be easily expelled into the other schools so that the top quality education in these Grammar Schools isn't ruined.

Filter out? Why not support them in lower sets?

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But why should under achieving students not get the best teachers?

I still think the better solution here is to just simply work on improving teaching provision in state schools. Improve identifying and supporting both gifted&talented students and those that will need extra help. Create better settled classes for high achievers... Smaller classes... I don't see why the schools have to be segregated? Most of what y'all wanting seems like it could quite easily be changed in the current state school system. And you still get the real life skills of knowing people from all different backgrounds ^^

At my school there was zero provision for the more able students, I don't think that was fair, but I don't think grammar schools are the solution, either.

This entire thread seems to be full of people who consider themselves bright, more able, gifted and talented, etc., yet the over bearing message seems that few of us got the support we wanted. And sure, if we'd all gone to grammars we'd have had better teaching and better support and been around people who were supposedly more driven to achieve - but this is a hugely one sided and close minded argument... I really hope the MPs block this move. Make them work to improve schools for everyone, not just the naturally gifted (or, yknow, those with pushy rich parents). Seems like a cop out to me...

Funding cuts to all schools
Don't have the space to house so many pupils
more students will reduce the individual quality of education, (a significant factor that contributes to the successful nature of grammar schools)

Not if you have streamed sets. Which I have proven. If you work hard enough you'll do well. You don't need a grammar school. Stop looking for excuses.

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The reason for this is providing clever students with a better education could mean the difference between them becoming the curer of cancer or not, the next Einstein or not.Where as educating less able students will achieve not that much as they will be going into basic jobs probably.

The reason for this is providing clever students with a better education could mean the difference between them becoming the curer of cancer or not, the next Einstein or not.Where as educating less able students will achieve not that much as they will be going into basic jobs probably.

That's a nice outlook on life. No matter what, if you're not gifted it's not even worth trying.For a lot of people good teachers are the difference between passes at GCSE or not, which has impacts on sixth form and later uni. That's the reason for providing "lesser abled" students with good teachers. If they don't get the opportunity to go to uni, perhaps they won't discover the cure for cancer, either. Not every invention or discovery came from the brightest of the bright.If I had the choice between giving a "good" teacher to student on the D/C boundary and the B/A boundary I'd give it to the D/C boundary. Because a C is a pass and thats all you need to get to the next stage in life - whether that is a btec or college course or sixth form, etc. If you don't get an A, you can still go to uni or whatever. It might not be the one you want, but you can still go. But if you don't get the bare minimum, you can't go. And that limits you.If the students don't have the drive or ambition then I don't care, frankly. But you can't ignore driven, but struggling students. Not everybody gets factorisation the first time around. But they're not invalid. They still deserve help.Presuming you went to a state school, if you had been set better in a group of maybe the 5-20 top kids in your subject, with extra homework / harder work or whatever - would you still have wanted to go to a grammar? And if so - why?

Why don't we start by making the prestigious unis more open to hard working kids from comprehensives rather than further entrenching the divisions between "intelligent" kids (the quotations marks are highly emphatic) and everyone else.

Trust me, I'm from a state grammar school student from Trafford - one of the few councils in the country that successfully resisted comprehensivisation. Just because everyone in my year managed to score high enough in one test at the age of 10/11 doesn't mean we don't have our fair share of utter morons.

Sounds harsh but true.

It makes no difference to the average Joe if he suddenly got 10Bs instead of 10Cs. It might get him into a slightly better uni and boost his ego but so ****ing what? There's too many kids at uni anyway, the ridiculous requirement of uni to get jobs is hurting the country. Even kids at Oxbridge are wasting time for three years. A chemist going into finance really needed 3 years worth of studying science, lol.

Everyone just wants better grades to get into a better uni to get a good degree (well and get wasted for 3 years of their life without responsibility) because that somehow means you will get a decent job. That is such a flawed system. All it means is that uni is a signal, oh look I am a graduate, I am a somewhat smart person that will do a good job working for you. What a costly signal to society...



Read this post of mine (which I wrote before reading yours that I just quoted) and then my post above. Your post is exactly what is wrong with the whole system to begin with. "and later uni". That is what the entire system is about. Somehow get into the best uni get the best degree get the best job. It's complete *******s.

I remember reading from people who decided who got an offer for Cambridge and they said something along the lines of that they can't fix a bad education and that why.Whats the point in making it more accessible for working class kids to get into prestigious Universities, if they won't perform well enough due to the poor education they have received in the past?

I think Grammar Schools are also a good way in encouraging getting rid of Private Schools without losing the good teaching that goes in good Private Schools.I doubt the Conservatives would get rid of Private Schools, which they should as they represent an unfair advantage for students who have rich parents.

See that's where you're going wrong - you can never get rid of that unfair advantage and If you think my school is full of bright working class kids you're sadly mistaken. It's the rich kids whose parent can afford the intensive private tuition that ultimately make it into grammar school (a very disproportionately high number of them).

I'm of a BME background from inner city Manchester and would never have known the north had so many any rahs if I hadn't gone to a grammar school.

The reason the rich tend to dominate Grammar Schools and prestigious Universities is mainly due to genetics as Darwin's theory of evolution would predict as they are receiving good genes from their parents where this is much less likely if the kid is poor which means they have to hope they are carrying good genes or for genetic variation/mutations.

The idea that rich kids should perform on average as well as poor kids is a stupid one that completely ignores Biology.A lot of politicians think this as if they didn't study Biology.If we were to get rid of private schools and private tuition rich students would still do a lot better than poor students but it should reduce the attainment difference.

My parents were not that clever and I have come from an underclass background but I have 3 very clever Uncles/Aunts out of 3 on my father's side of the family, so my father must have been carrying the good genes I think.

Studies have shown " about 62% of the individual differences in academic achievement—at least when it came to GCSE scores—could be attributed to genetic factors"

People's refusal to look at the evidence baffles me. There is zero evidence that grammar schools increase social mobility.