Eton

I would never send my children to even a selective school! It's so elitist, and I hate a system that writes off the "less smart" at such an early age, throws them into crappy little comprehensives while the ruling class get to romp around far from the madding crowd.

Selective schooling segregates social classes, and that is never going to be good for an evolving society.

Selection is hardly elitist in itself, providing that no one is denied a good education.

It's essentially the same principle as streaming, but between schools rather than within them. And there's a strong case for suggesting that this is a better idea than streaming within a school, as it has less of an impact on the sense of self-esteem of the students in the lower sets.

ok, so you didn't go around searching for the information in your spare time, but I stand by my comment about you being obsessed - from what I've seen you post on this forum, you became obsessed with merton and oxford at the time you were applying, you started debating and within about 4 weeks you knew the names of every prominent debator in the country, which school they went to, which university they were intending to go to and what to study.

That wasn't what you said at all - you said they were definitely going to them, which you just can't say at the age of 18 as you have no idea which direction your life will go in. Your parents work in education yet didn't think it was vital you went to one of these schools - surely that says something.

The problem is that selection often does do just that - in the closest borough to me that has selective schools, there is a noticable difference in the facilities and funding that the grammars have compared to the secondary moderns, effectively creating some sink schools

Streaming within a school can be more flexible - you can be in the top stream for some subjects and the middle/bottom for otehrs etc... depending on strengths and weaknesses. Being in the lower set is something that you can work to improve - if when you're 13/14 you get a lot better at learning than you wree at 11/12, you can move up with minimal disruption, which you can't do if your entire school is the 'bottom set'.

Selective schooling segregates social classes, and that is never going to be good for an evolving society. It denies poorer people educational opportunity and encourages snobbishness. Specialist schools are good because they allow the brightest students to be stretched academically while still keeping them within the mainstream sector (which I think is just good for a child's social development, but I'll accept some people disagree strongly on that point), and that system doesn't leave the poorer/less-able kids behind. Too many bright children are not getting access to the proper education they deserve, and it's because the system is biased against them. Comprehensives don't work because rich parents don't want anything to do with them, and that just "devalues the currency," if you understand

I used to be dead against private schools... but now i am a socailsit with a small 's' and think its ok as long as your willing to pay taxes as well lol.

Hypocritical i know

Every post you have made fails to distinguish between private schools (which are sometimes not very academically selective, if at all) and selective state education; grammar schools.

Before I decide I definitely disagree with you () could you just clarify your position on the two.

I disagree profoundly with any kind of selective secondary education because I think it segregates the social classes.

Private schools are always selective, even if it's purely in terms of hard cash.

I disagree profoundly with any kind of selective secondary education because I think it segregates the social classes. I do not, however, oppose streaming, because I don't think that has the same negative effects.

Private schools are always selective, even if it's purely in terms of hard cash.

I disagree profoundly with any kind of selective secondary education because I think it segregates the social classes. I do not, however, oppose streaming, because I don't think that has the same negative effects.

Again, that's a common misconception of pompous, middle-class do-gooders. Selection cannot separate the social classes unless you think social classes are already divided by intelligence. They are not.

It simply isn't true that selection is the means by which social classes are segregated. That rests on your (somewhat arrogant) assumption that working class=stupid and middle class=intelligent, and consequently that working class students won't be able to get into selective schools. As a working class student with a public-school education, I can tell you that that is completely wrong. And since there isn't a causal link between selection and class segregation, then you can't blame the principle of selection for a naturally occurring element of virtually all societies.