Grammar schools to return

Comprehensives often don't often help a great deal either though. The system of catchment areas means that wealthy kids go to schools with other wealthy kids and the schools generally end up being better as a result.

Which young children are you talking about? Grammar schools accept children who want to achieve, they usually filter out the ones who want to just get a C. Don't see what's wrong with that, what's wrong with being surrounded by people who actually want to achieve and not piss about?

You have the minority of students who want to achieve and get A*s and As, you can still go to a comprehensive and get that. But what I am saying is what does that cost you? After school work with teacher to learn A* topics or work at home? The point everyone keeps making is grammar schools have high standards, they cannot afford to have unable students as it's a burden. They slow everything down. It's not about what's fair or unfair, it's about if you want to achieve or if you don't want to achieve.

For your last paragraph, that is obvious. And those kids are pushed. At comprehensive you are told to get a C, at grammar school your told to get an A or higher. Even though C is a pass, it's not good enough to get into places like Oxford or cambridge.

There is no point saying it's unfair. If I missed my uni offer that's not unfair because that's my fault, I should have achieved higher for them to accept me.

Who is to blame if you fail 11+, only yourself, you can't put accountability on someone else when you are accountable yourself. That's not taking responsibility, life isn't flowers, rainbows and sunshine...

1. Is there such a thing as an A* topic? I am only familiar with secondary science where there isn't such a thing.

2. If someone achieves poorly in written examinations, it does not mean that they don't want to achieve. Rather, that the main form of assessment in this country favour people who are good at being assessed in a particular format.

3. At comprehensives, students now have targets which actually exceed what the student would be predicted to get based on their entry in year 7. For example, based on their KS2 their GCSE target may be a grade C. Throughout school they will then usually have a target of a B. If they achieve that B, they have showed a significant amount of progress.

If grammar schools are there to push for more A/A* grades (regardless of who the students are) then that is how they need to be advertised and not the current unproven rubbish about social mobility.

Yes there is such a thing as an A* topic , you have topics in Maths that are grade 8 (equivalent of A*) and for science you have "higher" topics which aim for B+. Everyone knows this, starting to get worried about what is coming next from your post...



I didn't say that if they do poorly in examinations means they don't want to achieve. From what I have seen, usually people who don't want to achieve get lower results so why should they be given a chance to go in a grammar school if they don't want to achieve?

I don't see what's wrong with the main form of assessment in the country. Well, maybe only a few things such as some subjects test on memory than on understanding and skills. That is how life is, you are tested, this is the only way people know where you are at. People who don't like selective grammar schools and the way their tested are a bit silly because GCSEs work the same and A-Levels and when applying to uni they look at these results and decide based on that.

As I said to a person previously, if a kid got three D's at A-Level, why is it that the kid can be accepted into Cambridge over students who got three A*s at A-Level? Oh yeah because that's unfair. Everything is unfair unfair unfair... Life isn't bunnies, rainbows and flowers.



That also happens in grammar schools... it's the same thing, just selective. Even if you don't pass 11+, you can try again in some schools in the 13+ exams, this isn't an unfair system because it gives you a second chance.



People say that grammar schools don't take disadvantaged children:



There you go.

Saw a documentary once, so not really. But I just spent half a minute googling.

http://www.human.cornell.edu/hd/outreach-extension/upload/casasola.pdf

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/feb/14/talking-to-babies-brain-power-language

http://www.jstor.org/stable/1130131?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

And there is other nurturing aspects that all together have a bigger impact than genes (such as iron deficiency, even breastfeeding patterns has been shown to have a positive impact on IQ).

i was against the idea of grammar schools at first but to be honest if i have kids one day i probably would try and get them into a grammar school.

really nothing is fair, is it fair that you might have more or less money that the next guy no

Those studies don't say that these nurturing aspects have a bigger impact than genes?I have already linked you to a study showing that 62% of the differences in achievement in GCSE grades are due to grades proving you wrong.

Study after study has shown genes to be the dominant factor in IQ and educational achievement.

If it was all down to nurturing then we would probably see less success from working class children as rarely can a working class parent provide the environment your study talks about.Its not that likely that a working class parent can speak complex language is it?Where as rich parents can tutor their children in their specialist area and buy private tuition for children and will probably speak complex language to their children.

Fortunately, there is variation in how genes are inherited and mutations can occur and working class parents can carry good genes giving their children some hope they can inherit intelligence but the chance is much less likely than for rich children.Many rich parents will provide this good environment and will not see their children perform that well or at least see them beaten by working class students because sometimes their children don't inherit their intelligence or aren't as intelligent as them, the regressing of the mean effect can help this.

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.

If you come from a **** environment then the environment is by far the most important factor. If you have every privilege under the sun then genes are the determining factor.

A decent whack of dosh can easily make up for the odd deficient gene.

Surely thats because only a small proportion of free school meal are clever enough to get in.The parents of free school meal students tend to not be very clever due to genetic inheritance the average intelligence of their children tends not to be too high but the regression towards the mean effect can help them a little.

You should really think of it in terms of statistics like with a distribution for example the normal distribution but the mean intelligence is lower than for students from richer backgrounds but there still is a small proportion of students clever enough to get into Grammar School.

Those free school meal students attending Grammar Schools will be pushed to do well and are likely to achieve much more than if they were at State School and a lot more of them would get into top Universities- currently the proportion of free school meal students is very small at top Universities.

As for why couldn't they do this at State Schools?Well I will tell you my experiences yes its true that clever students can do well at State Schools but its much less likely.I have seen it happen so often when I was at State School that clever students will misbehave and not work hard and thus not achieve that much(they usually get decent results as they are very intelligent) and teachers will often comment that they really could have done very well.

At Grammar Schools this is much less likely to happen as bad behaviour would be punished more severely and students will be encouraged and pushed with their education and these students may have misbehaved at State School because the lessons were too boring which wouldn't be the case at Grammar School.

How come we still see success from poor students then, most of them having a very poor environment? Your point is even more of an argument towards Grammar Schools as this will improve the environment for poor students, they will effectively get what money gets rich students these days with poor students also able to experience a good education.

Okay, so Maths has an A* topic(although grade 8 isn't completely the same as an A*). This does not mean every subject does - even from your own post, Science does not have any A* topics. There are Higher papers which have a very small number of topics which are not assessed on the Foundation paper (the difference is more to do with the difficulty of the questions).

Having an entire school for students because they feel they can't access the A* topics in a comprehensive is absurd. Address the issue if students feel that way - provide comprehensives with the funding and resources to raise standards.

What you have seen isn't necessarily a representative view. I teach many students who are keen to achieve and work hard, yet a C may be the best grade they get and something they should be proud of. There are also students who do not put in much of an effort and purely down to intelligence may easily get a C. I know I would much rather have the former in my classroom than the latter.

"They slow everything down. It's not about what's fair or unfair, it's about if you want to achieve or if you don't want to achieve." I may have misread what you wrote, but to me it implied that somehow everyone that gets in to a grammar wants to achieve, and everyone who doesn't make it must not want to achieve.

I didn't say it doesn't happen in grammar schools, but as you wrote "At comprehensive you are told to get a C" I wanted to debunk that myth. Staff at comprehensive schools work extremely hard to raise standard and ensure students achieve the best that they can. I can't think of anyone I work with who would think that the majority of students achieving a C is fine. I would say that the overwhelming majority of my students have a target of B+, and regardless of targets you try to get the best grade out of a student. Perhaps your own experience of a comprehensive has tarnished your view - things have changed drastically in the past 5 years.

It's kind of like asking how come we see people win the lottery when the odds are 14 million to 1. For every Justine Greening or Robert Peston there's a 1000 people working for Sports Direct.

The system is gamed from the outset. Rich parents move to the postcode where grammer schools are and get expensive tutoring.

Grade 8 is roughly equivalent to an A. I didn't say every subject has an A* topic. All I said was that to be able to get a higher grade at an average comprehensive school you will have to do more work after school and extra time with a teacher than you would in a grammar school. Why is that? Because of mixed ability. Mixed ability classes work at the pace of the slowest child which slows down the more able students = miss out on learning = less likely to achieve higher grades. Whether that is disruption or copying something from a board, time is lost. I didn't say that Science doesn't have A* topics...


No, completely misinterpreted. Grammar schools offer a chance to people who cannot afford private school education to get a high standard of education and be surrounded by students who have similar abilities. Why should students who achieve high grades be put in a group of mix ability kids at a comprehensive schools because the low-ability kids can "learn from them"? This is just sad...

For your last part about funding, that's funny because most schools are now academies and the funding system is not working and is completely corrupt. Some executives are getting paid more than the Prime Minister. So that's another political issue itself.



Yes but what you are trying to say is the students you are talking about in the former part should be allowed into grammar schools. If they do not meet requirements set then they are simply rejected. That's what it's like when you apply to sixth form and university. You cannot say that a C is good enough to get into Cambridge, that is completely ludicrous. Same thing for grammar schools, if someone flops a test, unfortunately for them they don't get in. Who's fault is that?



I am talking specifically about grammar schools here... usually most students in grammar schools do want to achieve. You have more dos around kids in comprehensive schools, which I think we can all agree on. I think I also previously mentioned that even if you don't get into a grammar school you can still get top grades even at a comprehensive school. Nothing is stopping you. I also mentioned 13+ exam tests, life doesn't end at 11+.



Ok I can see you work in the education sector just by reading the highlighted sentence. My mother also works in the education sector and I can tell you now she would recommend a student who she can see will go far due to high grades to go to a grammar school. She used to work in a school in a really deprived area, almost none of those kids wanted to achieve, it's an academy now, hasn't improved at all. She only met a few kids who wanted to achieve, what you are talking about is unfortunately also a unrepresentative view of most comprehensive schools in the country (by that I don't mean just the South). Anywhere north of Watford and you will be underfunded, that's how it is, the government has only cared about the South (although we are seeing some changes now because of the devolution deal and etc).

I didn't say a C isn't good. I said it's a pass, but for some people and some institutions such as grammar schools and Oxbridge, getting a C does not meet their requirements, doesn't matter how hard you worked to get that C, they do not accept students based on how hard they worked but based on their grades. That's how life is.

I went to a comprehensive primary school, the school just came out of satisfactory recently but I had to be taken out of classes along with a few others to do "Golden Sessions" with another teacher because the class were too slow. They worked at a different pace than me and I found myself sitting around in most lessons doing nothing...

So yes, it has tarnished and forever will until there are radical reforms. These academies aren't working, I'm sure you can agree with me on this, as you work in the sector yourself. I've seen good schools turned into academies and within a year or two they "require improvement" - ridiculous education policy it just doesn't work. I agree that if a school is failing the government should take over, but they need to know where the funding is going or else then we don't know the quality or standards of education children are getting.

The odds are much higher than that though even at Oxford there is 11.5% of students from working class backgrounds, where as a lot of rich students won't make it there even though their parents tried hard and paid for private school and private tuition.

Source:https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2010/sep/28/social-class-university-data

When you take genetics into account that gap will be a lot smaller, genetics are the strongest indicator of academic performance.

Your argument at the end is precisely the point if we move back to a Grammar School system they will become common throughout the country, so parents won't need to be at a specific postcode to have a nearby Grammar School.

Grammar schools are for portentous kids who are too poor for posh school.

Grammar schools are for portentous kids who are too poor for posh school.

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.

2. This is the big deal for me - why should a higher standard of education only be provided to a minority of people when it is everyone who will be the next generation contributing towards society?

3. That isn't what I am saying - I am arguing that grammar schools do not need to exist at all.

4. Yes, I do work in education. I have worked in a comprehensive in a very deprived area and there were major behavioural issues in the school. The students which wanted to do well, did well regardless of what else was going on (and by well I mean top grades). They did well because they were well informed, teachers discussed careers with them and we took care of the students.

If there was a local grammar, those students would possibly not be in those schools and then what? Where does that leave the school?

By creating grammars, the government is basically suggesting that those types of schools can continue the way they are rather than seeing the children behind the numbers and data and thinking what are we doing for those who don't show an interest and are not going to achieve well.

There is a difference in attainment (reading ability/range of vocabulary) by the age of 5 if someone has an uneducated mother and a mother who has had higher education. What are we as a country doing to address that? Are we leaving those people to remain in a vicious cycle? By the time they reach the age of 11 most of the damage is done.

This is just another move to kick poor, working class people back down the ladder. It has been a long time coming with the removal of EMA, increase in fees and then grants at university.

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.