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Grammar schools to return

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Original post by Jess_x
I'm FUMING. It does nothing for social mobility-look no further than the <handful% of children attending grammar schools who receive free school meals. Rich children could quite easily get extra tuition to help with entry, while working class families aren't nearly as supportive of their children's education. What about the late bloomers?And those gifted in specifically the arts or specifically the sciences? It separates children far too early on. You don't need to go to an elitist school to get a good education, you just need to want to do well.


You do realise there is a large gulf between the extremes of free school meals & affording private education - it is within this gulf that a lot of bright, grammar school kids sit.

I hate this tuition argument, even if the majority of successful applicants do use tuition - that is indescribably a cheaper expense than private education for 7 years. E.g In my own case, my parents scrapped their pennies together for my weekly tuition [WHICH BY THE WAY WAS THROUGH LESSONS IN THE POST, WHERE MY PARENTS USED THEIR EVENINGS AFTER BOTH WORKING LONG HOURS IN THE NHS] for the 11+ because they were switched on about how bad the comps were in my area, and they couldn't in their wildest dreams afford to send me private. So don't simplify the argument, a large proportion of these 'tutored' kids didn't have a sniff at private school if they failed the 11+.

There's nothing elitist about wanting your intelligent kid to be around other intelligent kids, with the evidence proving every single year when league tables come out that they outperform their mixed ability non-selective sector.

I actually find a lot of satisfaction in knowing a handful of severely underfunded state supported grammar schools outperform the likes of Eton, Harrow etc... year in year out without a penny being spent by any pupils.
Grammar schools have good intentions, however, I think they shouldn't be selective. Now, I know that this defeats the point of them I think this:
Grammar schools inherently have very high standards of teaching. So why can't this level of teaching be made available to everyone? I myself, a high ability student, applied to the few grammar schools in London.

The ones in South East London are predominantly confined to the Borough of Bexley. I missed out on a place by 8 points. I know people that missed out by 10 points, 5 points, 1 point. I also have a learning difficulty but this failed to he picked up on at the time. Therefore, I didn't have the necessary provisions in place that I now receive for exams.

So just because I was failed by the SEN department in primary school, I should be robbed of a high standard education? This is wrong. Aside from that, every child regardless of intelligence or wealth should be able to access high standard education, but by having grammar schools, this simply isn't the case. It's unfair that just because a child isn't in the top 5 in his class in primary school, they have to be left with bog standard teachers.

In addition, the amount of stress that entrance exams place on an 11 year old is disgusting. I sat 11 different exams and the amount of stress I had to endure from age 10-11 was horrific. Those years shouldn't be about taking exams. They should be about playing outside with your friends, playing games online or searching random things on Google, but instead your cooped up all day practising for these exams and taking them. The last thing is that Grammar schools promote elitism. Some of these kids who have a better education either because they are wealthier, slightly more intelligent, or just had a good day on test day by chance come out of school thinking that they're better than everybody else, even those who are at the same level as them, but had to work a lot harder than them.
This whole elitism thing angers me.

People say students going to an elitist school such as a grammar is wrong and they are no different to anyone else.

I'm sorry I think a doctor would have right to feel more elitist than a supermarket worker.
Original post by MrMackyTv

Of the students you are talking about, are they the majority or minority? Because if it's the minority then that's my point, a very small number want to do well in deprived areas.

This is so wrong. This makes me so angry. I go to a school in good area but has majority intake from deprived areas (about 85%). What your saying insinuates that most people that come from deprived areas want to badly. This is the stupidest claim I have ever heard. No one wants to do badly. Everyone wants to do well! That's human nature! Everyone wants the best for themselves. Some kids just don't have to correct resources and provisions that enable them to do well; and those kids who do do well, it's mostly because they are the minority of kids who are "naturally intelligent" and just have a knack for picking things up very quickly. To suggest that kids from deprived and impoverished backgrounds don't want to do well is insulting, ignorant and absurd.
Original post by thatguyaaronr
This is so wrong. This makes me so angry. I go to a school in good area but has majority intake from deprived areas (about 85%). What your saying insinuates that most people that come from deprived areas want to badly. This is the stupidest claim I have ever heard. No one wants to do badly. Everyone wants to do well! That's human nature! Everyone wants the best for themselves. Some kids just don't have to correct resources and provisions that enable them to do well; and those kids who do do well, it's mostly because they are the minority of kids who are "naturally intelligent" and just have a knack for picking things up very quickly. To suggest that kids from deprived and impoverished backgrounds don't want to do well is insulting, ignorant and absurd.


In my compressive and my set 2class 2 of 5 80% of the class didn't go onto A-levels of the 20% that did 15% failed. The school did get 91 U's out of 129 students at A-level.

Of the 80% that didn't go onto A -levels aproximatley 30% were not intelligent enough.

30% just wanted to party/didn't try.

The rest were all told by their parents just get a job
Original post by niteninja1
This whole elitism thing angers me.

People say students going to an elitist school such as a grammar is wrong and they are no different to anyone else.

I'm sorry I think a doctor would have right to feel more elitist than a supermarket worker.


You are correct. A doctor does have a right to feel higher up than a supermarket worker. For the sole reason that they're a doctor! Occupation has nothing to do with the matter. I'm saying that there are people with elitist attitudes simply because they go/went to a grammar/private school. Even those children who are still in the education system posses that attitude. Elitism for that reason is wrong.
This is a tv show but the concept made great sense of how this elitism thing works have a look it's called assanation classroom
Original post by niteninja1
Theresa May is set to remove the ban on grammar schools.

http://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/theresa-may-to-end-ban-on-new-grammar-schools/ar-BBvkxT1?li=BBoPRmx

Are you happy or angry


Fantastic news, but why was there a ban in the first place?
The Blair government felt they took funds away from comprehensive schools
Original post by niteninja1
The Blair government felt they took funds away from comprehensive schools


Ridiculous
Original post by niteninja1
In my compressive and my set 2class 2 of 5 80% of the class didn't go onto A-levels of the 20% that did 15% failed. The school did get 91 U's out of 129 students at A-level.

Of the 80% that didn't go onto A -levels aproximatley 30% were not intelligent enough.

30% just wanted to party/didn't try.

The rest were all told by their parents just get a job


This may all be true, but that doesn't mean that they didn't want to do well.In the case of the "30% who just wanted to party/didn't try", it may be perfectly sound to say that they didn't have a desire to do well; but still, this is not the case. They may have not tried or just wanted to go out constantly, but if you asked them for an honest answer, they wouldn't say that they wanted to do badly, would they? To tar the reputation of everyone who hails from a deprived area by saying they have no desire to do well, is as I said insulting and ignorant.
Original post by niteninja1
The Blair government felt they took funds away from comprehensive schools


That isn't really the position.

The ban on new grammar schools has effectively existed since 1966. The only new grammar schools since that date have been mergers between existing schools.

Until 1998 the ban rested on government policy that would not grant consent for a change in a school's character to become selective or the opening of a new selective school.

Blair legislated for two reasons. His party did not trust him not to permit grammar schools and the only way he could legislate to have schools that were not fully under the thumb of local authorities (Foundation Schools) was to take it out of the government's legal powers to allow these new schools to be grammar schools.

Secondly, he knew that he would be facing calls from Labour authorities to abolish existing grammar schools in areas that had or might become Labour under New Labour. He therefore invented a mechanism by which it appeared possible to abolish grammar schools by local ballot but, as was found with the only ballot ever to be held, was in practice virtually impossible. His government didn't have to rule on decisions whether to abolish grammar schools that had been politically draining for the Labour government in 1966-70 and 1974-9
(edited 7 years ago)
Original post by skeptical_john
Yes I was using exaggeration to make a point but you make my point for me. Only 11% are working class despite the working class make up around 40% of the population. And this is despite 20 years of interventions to try and improve things.

Even the tories see the problem
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2016/feb/11/universities-told-to-raise-numbers-of-working-class-and-black-students

Grammar schools wont be common. They will always take the best 10% of kids at age 11 based on the 11+ test. Those kids will always be predominately those who can afford tutoring and living in the right postcode.

It will ill a free public school education for a few middle class kids at the expense of the impoverished.


11% of Working Class people get into Oxford University and you think thats a big problem even though they only make up 40% of the population?I don't see the big problem the average intelligence of Working Class people will likely be a lot lower than Middle and Upper Class as they are likely to have similar intelligence to their parents which is likely to be low, most of their parents probably failed their O-Levels or did poorly in them.

So you expect large numbers of people to do so much better than their parents like getting into Oxford University(a University reserved for the very best geniuses), when most of their parents could barely pass O-Levels?Working Class students have got to hope for helpful genetic variation/mutations or that their parents do carry good genes or their parents weren't as successful as they should have been maybe?

I do generally find it silly the way politicians talk about these gaps the way they do there certainly needs to be a reduction in some of the unfair advantages for rich students but it won't change things that much I don't think as most of the difference is due to genetics.

These politicians think that the same numbers of people should be going to certain Universities in proportion to their social class which is completely ignorant of Biology and in particular Darwin's theory of evolution.Really what should happen is that people shouldn't change classes in large numbers other than generally due to variation/mutations or their parents carrying genes that weren't expressed in their parents, people should generally remain the same class.

In the past, intelligence must have been critical for survival in order for it to have developed and what we view of as the upper class today would have survived and passed on their intelligence to their offspring and the lower classes would have died and thus humans gradually grew more intelligent(if this didn't happen we would have been as stupid as animals are today and the generally accepted theory for virtually all differences between species is Darwin's theory of evolution).
I very much doubt that this is anywhere near the top of May's political agenda. It strikes me that this is very similar to what has happened every time there is a new education secretary. Some grammar school supporting politician, who hasn't got to get to grip with the realities, anonymously briefs a friendly journalist that the return of grammar schools is a possibility, and it runs as a story for a couple of weeks. The Department for Education has nothing to do with it and then pours cold water on it.

Any politician looking at this issue is faced with two models.

Either the DofE allows the opening of a "kill to get your child into" grammar school in a grammar school desert and the school is filled with "coached to the nth degree" kids whose parents have just been saved the independent day school fees they would otherwise have been planning on paying; or you allow an area to open grammar schools for 20% of the children in an area and you are faced with a group of comprehensives that have effectively just become secondary moderns and the ire of the parents at those schools.

My view would be to allow grammar schools in a non-grammar school area but require (a) the proponents to have a plan that within 5 years they have a school or schools able to meet demand for such of the top 20% of the national ability range as wish to apply for grammar school education in that area. In other words you can't open a grammar school in a new area unless you are willing and able to provide a proper grammar system for that area, where every child who passes the 11+ gets a grammar school place.

In an existing grammar school area, where there are insufficient grammar school places for those passing the 11+, new grammar schools should be freely permitted.
Original post by Dalek1099
11% of Working Class people get into Oxford University and you think thats a big problem even though they only make up 40% of the population?I don't see the big problem the average intelligence of Working Class people will likely be a lot lower than Middle and Upper Class as they are likely to have similar intelligence to their parents which is likely to be low, most of their parents probably failed their O-Levels or did poorly in them.

So you expect large numbers of people to do so much better than their parents like getting into Oxford University(a University reserved for the very best geniuses), when most of their parents could barely pass O-Levels?Working Class students have got to hope for helpful genetic variation/mutations or that their parents do carry good genes or their parents weren't as successful as they should have been maybe?

I do generally find it silly the way politicians talk about these gaps the way they do there certainly needs to be a reduction in some of the unfair advantages for rich students but it won't change things that much I don't think as most of the difference is due to genetics.

These politicians think that the same numbers of people should be going to certain Universities in proportion to their social class which is completely ignorant of Biology and in particular Darwin's theory of evolution.Really what should happen is that people shouldn't change classes in large numbers other than generally due to variation/mutations or their parents carrying genes that weren't expressed in their parents, people should generally remain the same class.

In the past, intelligence must have been critical for survival in order for it to have developed and what we view of as the upper class today would have survived and passed on their intelligence to their offspring and the lower classes would have died and thus humans gradually grew more intelligent(if this didn't happen we would have been as stupid as animals are today and the generally accepted theory for virtually all differences between species is Darwin's theory of evolution).


This is rubbish.

Success is mostly due to monetary not genetic inheritance. If your parents had money, you are more likely to have money. The original source of most inherited wealth is rarely connected to intelligence per se and even where it was, usually where the founder of a family fortune was a lawyer or inventor, that has been so diluted by choice of wives being largely unrelated to intelligence, to be of trivial importance.
Original post by Dalek1099
.


Interestingly I would have probably been making your exact arguments only a few years a go. Since then I've read so many books and papers that support the opposing view I changed my mind. I really tried to find solid evidence to support a type of pseudo Darwinian explanation for it all but I failed.

There is nothing I can say here that will convince you, I can only suggest trying to find some balanced material. This is one of the better ones as it's written by actual scientists but there are many others.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1847923194/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_dp_ss_1?pf_rd_p=569136327&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=0152062688&pf_rd_m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&pf_rd_r=W5RN3DBYT7VDN7KRHP61

A great example from the book is that of the chess champions
https://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200507/the-grandmaster-experiment
Original post by skeptical_john
Interestingly I would have probably been making your exact arguments only a few years a go. Since then I've read so many books and papers that support the opposing view I changed my mind. I really tried to find solid evidence to support a type of pseudo Darwinian explanation for it all but I failed.

There is nothing I can say here that will convince you, I can only suggest trying to find some balanced material. This is one of the better ones as it's written by actual scientists but there are many others.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1847923194/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_dp_ss_1?pf_rd_p=569136327&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=0152062688&pf_rd_m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&pf_rd_r=W5RN3DBYT7VDN7KRHP61

A great example from the book is that of the chess champions
https://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200507/the-grandmaster-experiment


I think that book is rubbish here is an article about how athletes really need talent.The fact that the best women can't run as fast as men shows that sporting success must be due to genes as not having the Y chromosome makes such a huge difference proving the book to be utter rubbish as it mentions sporting stars.

I have already quoted studies showing that genetics is the dominant factor, indeed it has to be or Darwin was wrong as humans have developed intelligence superior to animals and must have done by evolution if Darwin was right and thus intelligence must be highly genetic.

My own experience would prove you wrong as I excelled at school even when I didn't try hard I use to only work hard for exams and during my AS year I had major depression difficulties which meant I had to have regular GP visits and I really was losing the motivation to do my work and I didn't revise for my mocks but I got near to 100% in my Maths and Physics ones.Also, my college lecturers use to get really angry at how lazy some of my Maths friends were as they would barely do any work in the class and some students didn't like it as they always ended up getting great grades where as they worked and still couldn't understand it.Another part of my proof will be Stephen Hawking, if you do some research you will find he was a very lazy student and he didn't complete a lot of his exams as he couldn't remember stuff but just about got a first through stuff he could naturally do.

I think my school experiences are probably even better indicators as I didn't work until the exams for most of school and yet I achieved near to the best grades in mock exams and tests and generally performed the best in class quickly grasping concepts quicker than anyone else could from a very young age.Like I said earlier I think noone in the class could factorise quadratics but I could factorise them in my head just naturally.One of Maths teachers use to consider me naturally gifted in Maths and teachers generally saw me as an incredible genius and students sometimes complained when teachers said I had finished and why they hadn't because they couldn't be expected to compete with me and my teachers often speculated about how famous I would become(they did get carried away though).

However, I do know some clever students at school and teachers would even say this at times who could do a lot better but didn't perform too well as they didn't behave and weren't motivated to do well.

I'd certainly agree that you generally need training with natural talent(maybe not the case if you are an incredible genius like Hawking?), which is exactly why I support Grammar Schools to give the cleverest students from poor backgrounds their best chance and to prevent them misbehaving and losing motivation to do well.Working Class Students are much less likely to have the natural talent required so even training won't help them.Its clear without natural talent you have very little and you have some chance if you only have natural talent but to maximise your chances you need training and natural talent.

I am very lucky to be naturally gifted from an underclass background probably due to my parents carrying good genes, genes that have been successful in my Uncles/Aunt who were very successful my Uncle got the best results at school(like me) and got a PhD and did end up becoming a millionaire.
Original post by SHABANA
1. If the point of grammar schools is for students to achieve A/A*, comprehensive schools also have sets. Top sets may have some mixture of abilities, but are generally A/A* with very few B-grade students. Even when I taught in a very deprived school, where there were only 2 GCSE classes in the year group, the higher set had enough A/A* students.


I went to a school where the results for GCSE English, maths and just about every other subject that wasn't mixed ability set, ranged from A* to C across the top set. The less intelligent students definitely slowed the class down and held people back.

Original post by SHABANA
This government absolutely does not want to raise standard in every school. Introducing grammars is a way of creaming off the 'smarter' students, so unrealistic targets can be set for comprehensive schools and schools can be absolutely hammered when it comes to annual result reviews. Then it can be dictated to those schools what they need to do - perhaps rewind a few decades and go back to teaching those students a trade rather than pursuing an academic route.


If students are never going to achieve well academically why not steer them toward a trade rather than getting them a C in history?


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Original post by thatguyaaronr
This is so wrong. This makes me so angry. I go to a school in good area but has majority intake from deprived areas (about 85%). What your saying insinuates that most people that come from deprived areas want to badly. This is the stupidest claim I have ever heard. No one wants to do badly. Everyone wants to do well! That's human nature! Everyone wants the best for themselves. Some kids just don't have to correct resources and provisions that enable them to do well; and those kids who do do well, it's mostly because they are the minority of kids who are "naturally intelligent" and just have a knack for picking things up very quickly. To suggest that kids from deprived and impoverished backgrounds don't want to do well is insulting, ignorant and absurd.


This is just simply stupid. If you look at the statistics of schools in deprived areas most don't go into further education. Thats the truth and that's your problem if it's insulting. It's neither ignorant because it's a fact, what is ignorant is saying that all kids want to achieve without having any evidence of this at all.

Whatever fantasy world you are living in wake up now.
(edited 7 years ago)
To read the Telegraph article OP linked you'd think the golden age of the grammar school was abruptly ended in 1998 by Tony Blair

However

_90709912_grammarschools_chart.png

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Pretty doubtful May just intends to return us to the pre-1998 situation.

I'd guess it'd relieve a lot of problems for most academies if they were able to select; Ofsted target problems, discipline problems, teacher retention problems. Are existing non selective schools going to be able to convert to selection? Maybe there'll be more schools trying to convert to selection than required, if so who is going to decide which ones are allowed to convert and on what criteria? What's going to happen to the non-selected cohorts already in the school.

Is it expected that the change will just apply to brand new build schools? how are the new builds going to be paid for and what's going to happen to vacant old school buildings?

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