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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Educational elitism
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
I think that would only be practical in huge schools, Karl, and we don't have too many of those in the UK due to other factors.
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arse
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by betjemaniac:
There seems to just have been something in the grammars' DNA in the town which meant that 3 decades later they were still working with higher aspirations for their pupils than the secondary modern - which is *still* not great even since being forced through Special Measures to become an academy. To be clear, there is no bussing in the town, and almost everyone goes to the closest high school - yet the school in the poorer area with the social housing is still the one to go to if you can.
[/QB]
This is undoubtably so. Boy #1 goes to a local comp which is an ex-Grammar (it was one of the really old ones, dating from 1572) and has excellent results, despite now being a comprehensive and being in a deprived area in the midst of Maggie's Legacy (old pits now country parks) in Beast of Bolsover country.
Another thing I've noticed associated with the better thought of Comprehensives is the presence of a 6th Form - Boy #1's school not only has a 6th Form but they have to wear the uniform - which I thought was almost limited to the Independents. I wonder if the prospect of teaching 6th form students who are studying subjects at a more advanced level and who want to study those subjects is appealing to teachers and therefore results in more applicants for vacancies, enabling the school to be pickier about its teachers.
Just a hunch, that one.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
I would probably prefer accelerated programmes. So, an accelerated programme for maths, anotehr for science, a third for humanities, a fourth for modern languages, etc. Rather than assume that someone good at maths and sciences should be in the accelerated programme across all subjects.
But, isn't that setting?
I think I addressed that in point 5. I'm trying to steer a middle ground between the two entrenched positions. Inevitably it's going to be close in some ways to both of them ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
Well, I'm not trying to steer a middle ground since I'm a strong advocate of good comprehensive education.
I do, however, think there's a value in middle schools with an advancement to high schools at (around 13). There are a relatively small number of pupils who would benefit from additional resources in particular subjects that it would be too much to expect all schools to be able to provide. There are a small number of subjects where either a critical mass of good pupils in that subject, or some expensive facilities, would benefit pupils in those subjects. These are not the "core subjects" - all schools should be able to teach English, maths, science, history, etc to a high standard. But, sports would be an example where to get really good you need to be on the sports fields with other people who are good at sports (no one ever got better at football having to outplay me!). Music would be another, the opportunity to be in an orchestra or band with other good musicians, or access to particular instruments. Some languages, if someone wants to study Japanese or Mandarin Chinese it would be too much to expect all schools to have qualified teachers.
13 is the age when we tend to start specialising anyway, choosing subjects for standard grade/GCSE. So, it makes sense that students with particular specialist aptitudes get an option to go to a good comprehensive school but with particular focus on those subjects those aptitudes point to. But, still with all schools being basically equivalent in most subjects.
Basically, I think there is room for different schools to offer "accelerated programmes" in some particular specialist areas (but, all schools to offer those in most subjects).
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
I think that would only be practical in huge schools, Karl, and we don't have too many of those in the UK due to other factors.
It doesn't have to be huge schools. Any school with more than 30-40 pupils per year in a given subject will have to have two classes anyway. That automatically allows for an "accelerated programme" for one of the classes. There are not that many schools with less than 300 pupils (60 per year group = two or three classes for compulsory subjects).
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
I lived in Herts for a while, and they used to have middle schools, which seemed to work well. Part of the rationale, I think, was to ease the shock of going from primary to secondary.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
It doesn't have to be huge schools. Any school with more than 30-40 pupils per year in a given subject will have to have two classes anyway. That automatically allows for an "accelerated programme" for one of the classes. There are not that many schools with less than 300 pupils (60 per year group = two or three classes for compulsory subjects).
Well the problem is that if you want streaming then this might be possible - but then you'd end up with people who were good at science being put in the best sets in English etc.
If you want multiple sets in different subjects and have the sets filled most efficiently, then you'd have to have a large school.
Most of the Kent grammars are, I think, more than 1000 including sixth forms. The ones I know of have sets for science, Maths and English - and pupils obviously choose which options to take at 13.
If you are going to introduce many more sets over a wider ability range, you'd need a much bigger school to do that efficiently, in my opinion.
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arse
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
It doesn't have to be huge schools. Any school with more than 30-40 pupils per year in a given subject will have to have two classes anyway. That automatically allows for an "accelerated programme" for one of the classes. There are not that many schools with less than 300 pupils (60 per year group = two or three classes for compulsory subjects).
Well the problem is that if you want streaming then this might be possible - but then you'd end up with people who were good at science being put in the best sets in English etc.
If you want multiple sets in different subjects and have the sets filled most efficiently, then you'd have to have a large school.
Obviously, as I think streaming is a really bad idea, that's not what I'm suggesting.
If you did it in sets, why would you need a large school? If numbers mean that you have to split a year group into two or more classes, why not do that on the basis of the ability of the pupils in that subject?
My school (about 1200 pupils, so probably on the large side) divided the school into four houses with (usually) two classes per year in each house for compulsory subjects. The house system made time-tabling a bit simpler (there would have been insufficient teachers to have all 7-8 classes at the same time, same with labs for science), and we setted subjects within houses. But, it wouldn't have been impossible to have a mixed-house top set class in maths or English. Lower pupil:teacher and pupil:classroom ratios would, obviously, make timetabling easier. But, I don't see how a bigger school makes much difference.
Of course, the best system is for each pupil to have their own, individual, programme of study with small classes (and, individual tuition as needed). But, that's also the most expensive option. Though I think we do need to spend more on education, including having more teachers and schools with more rooms available for teaching smaller classes, there has to be a balance somewhere.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
That's what puzzles me about setting. Doesn't this give the grammar enthusiasts what they want?
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
Obviously, as I think streaming is a really bad idea, that's not what I'm suggesting.
If you did it in sets, why would you need a large school? If numbers mean that you have to split a year group into two or more classes, why not do that on the basis of the ability of the pupils in that subject?
The grammar school I know best has 3 sets for Mathematics. I'd have thought it was a given that in a mixed ability school there would need to be many more sets than that - in Maths and English if not in Science, languages etc.
quote:
My school (about 1200 pupils, so probably on the large side) divided the school into four houses with (usually) two classes per year in each house for compulsory subjects. The house system made time-tabling a bit simpler (there would have been insufficient teachers to have all 7-8 classes at the same time, same with labs for science), and we setted subjects within houses. But, it wouldn't have been impossible to have a mixed-house top set class in maths or English. Lower pupil:teacher and pupil:classroom ratios would, obviously, make timetabling easier. But, I don't see how a bigger school makes much difference.
It enables much more finely grained ability classes in multiple subjects. I'd have thought that's what you'd have wanted.
quote:
Of course, the best system is for each pupil to have their own, individual, programme of study with small classes (and, individual tuition as needed). But, that's also the most expensive option. Though I think we do need to spend more on education, including having more teachers and schools with more rooms available for teaching smaller classes, there has to be a balance somewhere.
Well that's not going to happen. Given the restrictions, we're very unlikely to ever get classes lower than 25-30 pupils in most schools. If we want 5 or more sets in several subjects, then it'd need to be a large school.
I honestly cannot understand why you're not accepting this rather basic point.
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arse
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
Probably because I'm not necessarily accepting that we need to work with the given restrictions. Why not employ enough teachers and build enough class rooms that we can have classes of 15 rather than 30?
Added to which, there are restrictions on how finely graded the different sets can be. Each set would need a slightly different curriculum, which means the teachers would need to plan a larger number of lessons to meet those. They would need homework assignments for a larger number of classes etc. Of course, employ more teachers and that becomes more practical.
I can see the practical difficulties with a small school. But, I don't see the problem with implementing this in an average high school of 800-1200 pupils such that a huge school is needed.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
In our case, the answer is "money." Employing one teacher costs a minimum of 100,000 dollars a year (benefits etc.) even if you do no building. And we're in a relatively well-off district.
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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North East Quine
Curious beastie
# 13049
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Posted
In Scotland, there are three different curricula for each subject which is examined at age 16. When my kids were going through these were known as Standard Grade credit, S.G. general and S.G. foundation. They've now been re-named Nat 5, Nat 4 and Nat 3. Each had a different exam; if a pupil was aiming at SG credit but was borderline, s/he sat both credit and general exams. So there are three concurrent curricula for e.g. maths. Pupils can be aiming for Nat 5 in some subjects, but Nat 4s in others. From there the next tier of examination is Highers. Highers can be taken in a single year by the more able, or over two years. For those who get their Highers at age 17, the final year of school comprises Advanced Highers, or extra Highers, or even extra Nat 5s.
I don't know how this works as far as timetabling goes, but it does seem to be flexible.
Posts: 6414 | From: North East Scotland | Registered: Oct 2007
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Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
It doesn't have to be huge schools. Any school with more than 30-40 pupils per year in a given subject will have to have two classes anyway. That automatically allows for an "accelerated programme" for one of the classes.
If half the school is doing it, it can't be all that "accelerated", can it?
Which brings up a question - we seem to have a lot of people agreeing that setting classes is advantageous. So if it's an advantage to reduce the spread of abilities in a particular class, how small does the ability spread have to get before you stop seeing advantages? Ignore the geographic and school-size questions associated with this for the moment.
If pupil ability follows some kind of vaguely normal distribution, it might be best to have numerically small top and bottom sets, and larger middle sets (where most of the ability congregates).
Posts: 5026 | From: USA | Registered: Feb 2013
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
restructure to a three stage system, lower schools up to 9, middle schools 9-13 and uppper schools from 13+.
That means that KS3 kids miss out on specialist subject teachers and make misguided choices for GCSE
That rather depends on how you run your Middle Schools doesn't it? In Bedfordshire in the 70s when I was in that system you had a fairly primary school-like setup in what would now be Yr5, with specialist teachers for things like Science, PE and Modern Languages, then got more and more specialised teaching in Yrs 6 and 7 until by Yr8, the final year, you were largely already in the Upper School separate teachers for every subject regime.
We actually got specialised teaching earlier than in the Primary/Secondary model where you often don't get any until Yr7
[ 16. September 2016, 14:25: Message edited by: Karl: Liberal Backslider ]
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
restructure to a three stage system, lower schools up to 9, middle schools 9-13 and uppper schools from 13+.
That means that KS3 kids miss out on specialist subject teachers and make misguided choices for GCSE
That seems to assume that the 9-13 middle school (I'm assuming that would correspond to KS3) doesn't employ specialist teachers. I see no reason to assume that. The proposal could just as easily result in children getting the benefit of specialist teachers earlier (age 9 rather than 11).
[X-post with Karl who said basically the same thing]
[ 16. September 2016, 14:28: Message edited by: Alan Cresswell ]
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
That's what puzzles me about setting. Doesn't this give the grammar enthusiasts what they want?
No. They want completely separate schools.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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betjemaniac
Shipmate
# 17618
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Posted
as per Karl, my late 80s early 90s Midlands middle school had separate subject teachers (and setting for maths and english). In fact, we had them from the age of 9, so you could argue that we were better off than those who only get them post 11, and thus *better* able to make the right GCSE choices...
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And is it true? For if it is....
Posts: 1481 | From: behind the dreaming spires | Registered: Mar 2013
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
Cheesy - point of information; Boy #1's school has six maths sets per year (it's an average size, c. 1000) at three levels. It could therefore make the same offerings were it half the size, with three sets. It's a bit of an interesting question, though, exactly how many sets you need. The reality of the normal distribution (how appropriate for discussing Maths setting!) is that your top and bottom sets will always tend have quite a wide range of abilities, potentially from the significantly above average to the bloody genius. You might, depending on your size, do well with one top, one bottom and two middle sets.
In theory, the pupils at Boy #1's school don't know the ranking of the sets. In reality of course they do (like when they get a letter telling them they're moving up a set), but there's no need to make a song and dance about it. Besides, if you do walk through the corridors singing the I'm In The Top Maths Set song, you're likely to get the "We're Not But We're Stronger Than You" song sung to you in PE later in the day. I should add, perhaps, that neither song would be tolerated.
By comparison, the pass/fail 11+ is a bleedin' Opera in three acts with ballet.
[ 16. September 2016, 14:33: Message edited by: Karl: Liberal Backslider ]
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
No. They want completely separate schools.
If you want setting and small(ish) schools, you would be drawn towards a selective-school model. You then have to decide whether large schools are worse than the hard boundary between schools.
Posts: 5026 | From: USA | Registered: Feb 2013
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
No. They want completely separate schools.
If you want setting and small(ish) schools, you would be drawn towards a selective-school model. You then have to decide whether large schools are worse than the hard boundary between schools.
I don't think they are. I'd be interested to know how small the schools are in the remoter areas of the country. But they already face this dilemma in the main.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
For reference, I found a Secondary school in North Uist, about as remote as you can get, with 256 students, in 6 year groups. That's 42 per year, presumably two classes. It'd be interesting to know how they do it!
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
That's what puzzles me about setting. Doesn't this give the grammar enthusiasts what they want?
No. They want completely separate schools.
Schools are judged based on how many of their kids get five or more GCSEs at grade C or better. Head teachers' jobs can literally depend on that figure.
So if you're a head teacher, with your job depending on you getting more kids to achieve those five Cs, and you have a top set of kids who will achieve that without really trying, a middle set who will probably achieve it if they're given lots of help, and a bottom set who might just achieve it if you throw everything at them, which way are you going to direct your (limited) resources? Are you going to focus effort on getting kids who are already on five or more Cs up to Bs and As (which doesn't help you very much), or are you going to focus on getting the ones that are on Ds and Es up to Cs (which helps you very much)? I know what I'd do.
With separate schools, all groups of kids can be sure that the resources of their school are going to go towards their educational needs.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
That's what puzzles me about setting. Doesn't this give the grammar enthusiasts what they want?
No. They want completely separate schools.
Schools are judged based on how many of their kids get five or more GCSEs at grade C or better. Head teachers' jobs can literally depend on that figure.
That is very easily changed.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
Indeed, the thought crosses my mind that eliminating that factor might remove or reduce the aforementioned 5.5 GCSE Grade deficit for the brightest pupils in Comprehensive schools, might it not?
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Can I throw in a compromise which I think might answer some of Marvin's and Eliab's points whilst also being more palatable for those of us who tend to oppose grammar schools? It's a pure thought exercise because I'm not Secretary of State for Education. But I've said that I'm not satisfied with the current system if it disadvantages the most able, but also unwilling to move to a system which disadvantages the least able, so it perhaps behoves me to have an alternative in mind.
[details of scheme]
I could easily be persuaded that a three-school progression is a good thing. I went to state primary and middle schools (though the middle school was for ages 8 to 11, not 13) and it seems to be a not-uncommon break point in the private sector as well, with primary and then prep schools before a senior school.
The mixed-ability-plus-accelerated-sets isn't something I'm viscerally opposed to, either. But it seems to me that you might have an outline for a good school there, it's not the only model that could succeed. I'm unpersuaded that there is anything wrong with selective schools in principle, so the fact (which I willingly admit) that it is possible to have excellent non-selective schools doesn't make me conclude that we should close or merge all of the excellent selective ones.
It seems to me that the principle that students learn better in groups of broadly similar abilities seems to be accepted on all sides. Selective schools represent one way of working that principle out in practice. There is the argument that Marvin presents, that putting all those groups together in one school risks putting them in competition for attention and resources. There's also a possible advantage that at a selective school every pupil is within the same narrower ability range, and every teacher is well-prepared to teach to that standard.
There's also a great deal to be said, in my view, for having schools that children have had to work damned hard to get into. That breeds confidence ("they wanted me" "I wouldn't be here if I couldn't do it") like nothing else, and gives the child an immediate feeling of investment in their own education ("I earned it"). And a school doesn't have to be a top-tier elite institution for that to work - any offer of a school place that a child has worked for is an achievement to be celebrated.
That is, I can see reasons why a parent might rationally choose a selective school for their child over even a good non-selective one. I did.
Other parents, and other children, are different. I can readily see, for example, that a child who absolutely excels in one area, and struggles in another, would be best served by a mixed-ability school with separate setting in each subject and the resources to teach well at every level. But I'm not arguing that every school has to be modelled on the ones that suit my children. I'm just saying that I'm glad that there are schools that do seem to suit my children, that those schools happen to be selective, and that I'm lucky I got the chance to choose them. I think it is very good news that a government (of which I am not a general supporter by any means) seems to be willing to give parents who currently can't make that sort of choice the opportunity to do so.
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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
Posts: 4619 | From: Hampton, Middlesex, UK | Registered: Mar 2005
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
It seems to me that the principle that students learn better in groups of broadly similar abilities seems to be accepted on all sides. Selective schools represent one way of working that principle out in practice.
Except, it doesn't do that. Selective schooling is basically streaming. It puts together pupils who have exceeded the requirements in an exam, nothing more. You'll still have some pupils good at maths but useless at humanities mixed in with those good at humanities and bad at maths.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
Except, it doesn't do that. Selective schooling is basically streaming. It puts together pupils who have exceeded the requirements in an exam, nothing more. You'll still have some pupils good at maths but useless at humanities mixed in with those good at humanities and bad at maths.
Which is why I'm not saying that every school should select. A school that is geared up for high (or average, or remedial...) standards across the board almost certainly is not a good choice for someone whose abilities in different subjects range from "good" to "useless". For a pupil like that, Karl's model is obviously better.
Children are different. It's OK if schools are different, too. There's more than one way of delivering an excellent education. Selection isn't the only way. It's not going to be the best way for everyone. But as long as some children benefit from it, and some parents want to choose it, I'm in favour of giving them that opportunity.
An example of selection working: my son is bright. He's also dyslexic. At primary/prep level reading and writing are clearly given a lot of emphasis, and they are the skills which are most visible to the children themselves. Since my son found, for several years, that he needed to put much more effort into reading than most of his peers, and reading felt like work to him after it had become natural to others, that had an effect on his confidence. Obviously we explained to him what dyslexia is, and that high intelligence and dyslexia can and often do coincide, but all the same, it's frustrating to struggle at something which others seem to find easy.
This year he took entrance exams for secondary schools. Just putting him in for the exams was the best educational decision I've ever made, because when started getting letters with offers of a place, that he had earned, in a competitive examination, it wasn't just Dad being re-assuring - it was proof that he was smart. The effect on his confidence has been astonishing.
We ended up with a choice between a very strong academic school with good dyslexia support, and a good, not quite as academic, school with excellent dyslexia support as one of its main selling points. My boy chose the more academic school because "I know I'm dyslexic, but I'm not just dyslexic". Selection was a phenomenal confidence booster for him.
I'm not saying that's true for everyone. What I'm saying is that if there's a child whose parents and teachers think will do well at a selective school, they should not be given the chance only if they live in a certain area or can afford it.
[ 17. September 2016, 08:34: Message edited by: Eliab ]
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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
Posts: 4619 | From: Hampton, Middlesex, UK | Registered: Mar 2005
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
Except, it doesn't do that. Selective schooling is basically streaming. It puts together pupils who have exceeded the requirements in an exam, nothing more. You'll still have some pupils good at maths but useless at humanities mixed in with those good at humanities and bad at maths.
Which is why I'm not saying that every school should select.
Though, if there is a significant portion of schools that select then all schools select. If you have a grammar school with an 11+ entrance requirement, then all the other local schools will have an intake that is biased towards those who did not get the necessary minimum 11+ mark (including, of course, those who didn't take the test but would have passed if they had). The grammar school selects those who pass the 11+, the other schools select those who didn't.
You can't have some schools being selective - they either all are, or none are.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
You can't have some schools being selective - they either all are, or none are.
Sorry, that's wrong as well. See Gloucestershire.
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arse
Posts: 10697 | Registered: Sep 2002
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
You can't have some schools being selective - they either all are, or none are.
Sorry, that's wrong as well. See Gloucestershire.
OK, for those of us who are not privy to the details of the education system in Gloucestershire, can you expand on that? If you're going to assert that my statement is wrong you're going to have to be clearer as to why you think I'm wrong.
I will admit that if selection only accounts for a very small minority of pupils (say 1%) then the impact on forcing selection on all other schools would probably be insignificant. If that's what you're saying then you're right that I'm wrong. But, if you can show how selection of 10-20% of pupils doesn't force all local schools to be selective by default then I would like to see that argument expanded on.
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Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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ThunderBunk
Stone cold idiot
# 15579
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
You can't have some schools being selective - they either all are, or none are.
Sorry, that's wrong as well. See Gloucestershire.
Could we have some more information, and can you describe how allowing concentration of the academically inclined into a single school within an area does not by default distort the population of the schools around it, making them specialist schools by default.
I am becoming increasingly frustrated by all such debates, because they are not interrogating their own terms. My charge is that none of the above is really about the education of children at all. It's about parents wanting to attain status by proxy - that seems to me to be the entire and sole purpose of every aspect. Any resemblance between that and a child-centred education leading to the development of a fully rounded member of society seems to me to be entirely co-incidental.
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Currently mostly furious, and occasionally foolish. Normal service may resume eventually. Or it may not. And remember children, "feiern ist wichtig".
Foolish, potentially deranged witterings
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Eliab
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# 9153
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
You can't have some schools being selective - they either all are, or none are.
Why? There are plenty of people on this thread with a positive preference for non-selective schools. They would, presumably, continue to send their children to comprehensives.
Also, in most of the UK, you'll already find a good mix of selective and non-selective schools. It's just that outside counties that still have grammar schools, the selective ones are all private. The idea of having some grammar schools co-existing with other models doesn't change the educational landscape so much as open up parts of it to people who can't afford the private option.
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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
Posts: 4619 | From: Hampton, Middlesex, UK | Registered: Mar 2005
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
OK, for those of us who are not privy to the details of the education system in Gloucestershire, can you expand on that? If you're going to assert that my statement is wrong you're going to have to be clearer as to why you think I'm wrong.
It isn't about "thinking you are wrong" it is about knowing what you are talking about before you try typing the words on the screen Alan.
Gloucestershire has a small number of well established Grammar schools which have been there for hundreds of years. Due to the overall governing politics of the county council since the 1970s, it was decided that no new grammars would be allowed, that expansion of the existing grammars would be prevented and that there would be very limited assistance to junior school children to go to the grammars. So there was no version of the "Kent Test" and the individual grammar schools set their own admissions policies.
The end result was that the grammars were historically underfunded, that parents did not necessarily fall over themselves to get into the grammars, and that a mixed educational economy developed with very good full comprehensives - alongside a small number of grammars who historically struggled to fill places. In the more recent past there has been more pressure from parents who want their children to go to selective education - however there is as much pressure from parents with bright children to get into the "good" comprehensives.
It is clearly not a perfect system because there is still a hierarchy of schools based on desirability, good and bad comprehensives, grammars and private schools.
But I can tell you that there is definitely a choice to go with selective education (or not) unlike the places with "full" grammars - like Kent, Buckinghamshire and the Wirral - where you'd have to have totally dropped the ball as a parent to send your child to a non-grammar if they were capable of passing the test.
quote:
I will admit that if selection only accounts for a very small minority of pupils (say 1%) then the impact on forcing selection on all other schools would probably be insignificant. If that's what you're saying then you're right that I'm wrong. But, if you can show how selection of 10-20% of pupils doesn't force all local schools to be selective by default then I would like to see that argument expanded on.
There are about 1000 places in Gloucestershire's grammar school y7 entry, 6500 total. About 15%.
Kent in comparison has 5000 grammar places out of a total of 15000, which ends up being something below 30%.
It just is not true that the non-grammars in Gloucestershire are selective by default.
Instead of guff and myths, it'd be quite nice to have a debate with someone who actually knew what they were talking about.
[ 17. September 2016, 09:27: Message edited by: mr cheesy ]
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arse
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leftfieldlover
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# 13467
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Posted
I failed my 11+ in the 1960s and the memory of the dismay and sadness it caused me, has probably affected my life more than anything else. Even though I now have a degree and various diplomas, 'it' is always lingering somewhere in the back of my mind!
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
You can't have some schools being selective - they either all are, or none are.
Why? There are plenty of people on this thread with a positive preference for non-selective schools. They would, presumably, continue to send their children to comprehensives.
Though, by definitions, comprehensives have pupils representative of the local population. If there's a large selective school in the area (whether fee-paying or state grammar) that takes a large portion of pupils then the "comprehensive" will no longer be representative of the local population - by default the distribution of pupils will be biased by the absence of those who satisfied the selection criteria of the selective school. Having one or more school being selective forces all local schools into a form of selection by default.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ThunderBunk:
I am becoming increasingly frustrated by all such debates, because they are not interrogating their own terms. My charge is that none of the above is really about the education of children at all. It's about parents wanting to attain status by proxy - that seems to me to be the entire and sole purpose of every aspect.
I think, on the contrary, that this discussion has focussed almost entirely on the educational merits of different systems and been mercifully free from ulterior motivations (and accusations thereof) on both sides.
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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
And another thing: unlike Kent, the grammars in Gloucestershire are not evenly spread across the county. Hence it is a perfectly respectable decision to send your child to a local comp rather than sending them on a long-and-difficult journey to a grammar. Hence some comprehensives in Gloucestershire are very good.
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arse
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Instead of guff and myths, it'd be quite nice to have a debate with someone who actually knew what they were talking about.
So, I don't know the details of one country in England. Sorry, but if it was required that we know the details of the educational systems every English county (not to mention Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and other nations) then you'd also be butting out of this discussion.
But, what I'm talking about is elementary statistics. If you have a distribution of ability and have two education systems. One system is comprehensive, and each school has the same distribution of ability. The other system has selective schools who only take the top 15% of that distribution, with other schools taking the rest. It's obvious, IMO undeniable, that the distribution of ability in the "non-selective" schools will be different than it would under a comprehensive system. There has been a selection for the lower 85% of the distribution in the so-called "comprehensive schools". The effect of selection by grammars has forced selection on the entire system.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
But I can tell you that there is definitely a choice to go with selective education (or not) unlike the places with "full" grammars - like Kent, Buckinghamshire and the Wirral - where you'd have to have totally dropped the ball as a parent to send your child to a non-grammar if they were capable of passing the test.
/tangent
Entirely true.
I (briefly) attended a grammar school in Buckinghamshire and it was clearly the second-tier grammar in the town (a pretty sizeable one, known for furniture making). I suppose that's one way of satisfying the urge parents have to send their children to grammars, namely to have a lot more of them, catering for almost half the secondary places.
tangent/
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SvitlanaV2
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# 16967
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Some comprehensives in Gloucestershire are very good.
This must be one (but obviously not the only) reason why some middle class parents might be angry about the creation of new grammar schools. If your own children are attending a very good comprehensive school, new grammars could be viewed as an unnecessary and disruptive complication.
To be admired are middle class people like Boogie above, who send their children to struggling comprehensives. That takes real commitment. It probably also involves great optimism in your children's natural ability, or an optimism in your ability as an educated parent to cover any deficiencies in their schooling.
Posts: 6668 | From: UK | Registered: Feb 2012
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leo
Shipmate
# 1458
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by betjemaniac:
as per Karl, my late 80s early 90s Midlands middle school had separate subject teachers (and setting for maths and english). In fact, we had them from the age of 9, so you could argue that we were better off than those who only get them post 11, and thus *better* able to make the right GCSE choices...
Need to be very big middle schools - my experiencfe in Leeds was of 'faculties' - so a mishmash of History, Geography and RE subsumed under 'Humanities- ditto for the sciences - bad for all subject specislisms.
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Posts: 23198 | From: Bristol | Registered: Oct 2001
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ThunderBunk
Stone cold idiot
# 15579
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
quote:
Originally posted by ThunderBunk:
I am becoming increasingly frustrated by all such debates, because they are not interrogating their own terms. My charge is that none of the above is really about the education of children at all. It's about parents wanting to attain status by proxy - that seems to me to be the entire and sole purpose of every aspect.
I think, on the contrary, that this discussion has focussed almost entirely on the educational merits of different systems and been mercifully free from ulterior motivations (and accusations thereof) on both sides.
I don't agree, and this is why.
Selectivity is said to be desirable because it improves the education of a certain proportion of pupils. I simply don't believe that this is the real motivation; there is no more thought about the actual process of education than there is about healthcare, since in both cases the professionals (having been stripped of their professional freedoms by government fiat) are than expected to deliver "the results" within the chosen framework. Selection is desirable because it then fuels the inevitable competitive merry-go-round of house purchasing, coaching, tiger parenting etc. etc. etc.. All I hear is salivation at the thought of league tables, house prices and other complete distractions.
There is a disclaimer to be entered, in that I'm not certain that this is the case among the specific people debating the situation here and now. It may be that hearing it debated as a proxy for the above time after time after time has just dulled my intellectual senses to the point where I can't hear anything else.
There is one definite charge, though: schools are being talked about as if they operate by some kind of magic, performing a standard process on every unit input into them. This is so far from being the case that I don't know where to start.
I don't expect to change the course of anything. I just needed to register a protest at this whole series of consumerist fantasies being projected onto a complex series of relational and developmental processes.
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Currently mostly furious, and occasionally foolish. Normal service may resume eventually. Or it may not. And remember children, "feiern ist wichtig".
Foolish, potentially deranged witterings
Posts: 2208 | From: Norwich | Registered: Apr 2010
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
So, I don't know the details of one country in England. Sorry, but if it was required that we know the details of the educational systems every English county (not to mention Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and other nations) then you'd also be butting out of this discussion.
Well sorry, maybe you should know more about grammar schools before you try pontificating about them.
Some good points have been made in this debate about selective education and the reasons why it should not happen. But an equal amount of myths and lies have been put forward by people who clearly have no idea about the variety of educational systems and demographics of places in which grammars exist in England.
quote:
But, what I'm talking about is elementary statistics. If you have a distribution of ability and have two education systems. One system is comprehensive, and each school has the same distribution of ability. The other system has selective schools who only take the top 15% of that distribution, with other schools taking the rest. It's obvious, IMO undeniable, that the distribution of ability in the "non-selective" schools will be different than it would under a comprehensive system. There has been a selection for the lower 85% of the distribution in the so-called "comprehensive schools". The effect of selection by grammars has forced selection on the entire system.
Again, I'm sorry, you don't know what you are talking about.
And I bored of talking to someone who looks at statistics and think that tells you the whole story of an educational system despite the plain evidence of places that have mixed selective and non-selective schools. Places that have grammars are different. You can tell me until you are blue in the face that Gloucestershire is the same as Kent and you'd still be wrong however many times you said it.
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arse
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
This must be one (but obviously not the only) reason why some middle class parents might be angry about the creation of new grammar schools. If your own children are attending a very good comprehensive school, new grammars could be viewed as an unnecessary and disruptive complication.
Very likely, I'd think.
quote:
To be admired are middle class people like Boogie above, who send their children to struggling comprehensives. That takes real commitment. It probably also involves great optimism in your children's natural ability, or an optimism in your ability as an educated parent to cover any deficiencies in their schooling.
Everyone is free to do whatever the like, of course, but I don't admire a person who does that to their child.
My view has always been that my child's education is one of the most important things for me to try to get right as a father. I appreciate the argument about the generality of children, but my main responsibility is to the best for my child.
I would under no circumstances put my child in a struggling comprehensive. If it came to it, I'd spend limited resources I have moving to another area or paying for private education if I thought that the only alternative was a poor (determined by a range of factors) school. My child is not an experiment or a project and I'll not use them as a way to improve a borked education system.
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arse
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ThunderBunk
Stone cold idiot
# 15579
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Posted
I've been thinking about what I said above, and while I don't disagree with any of it, I think there is a plainer point to be made.
I was so psychologically maimed by the process of education that the academic output, impressive as it has been, has been pretty irrelevant in my life.
I see no concern for the welfare of the children going through the experience of education above. I see, as in mr cheesy's recent post, concern for the output and the effect of that on subsequent life and life chances, but I see no concern for the process. Selection can lead to an environment in which only the pointy-elbowed, aggressive and obnoxious get anywhere. This may seem like life outside education, but we are supposed to be building a genuinely plural society, and this is one anti-plural element (in that it allows only one psychological type to thrive) that selective education perpetuates.
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Currently mostly furious, and occasionally foolish. Normal service may resume eventually. Or it may not. And remember children, "feiern ist wichtig".
Foolish, potentially deranged witterings
Posts: 2208 | From: Norwich | Registered: Apr 2010
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ThunderBunk:
I don't agree, and this is why.
Selectivity is said to be desirable because it improves the education of a certain proportion of pupils. I simply don't believe that this is the real motivation; there is no more thought about the actual process of education than there is about healthcare, since in both cases the professionals (having been stripped of their professional freedoms by government fiat) are than expected to deliver "the results" within the chosen framework. Selection is desirable because it then fuels the inevitable competitive merry-go-round of house purchasing, coaching, tiger parenting etc. etc. etc.. All I hear is salivation at the thought of league tables, house prices and other complete distractions.
That's interesting and may well be something related to the Tory thinking on this.
But it also doesn't work. If you have many more grammars, you have very wide school catchment areas, so the effects of a school on house prices is much more spread out - even if it is accepted that the people who send their children to grammars are upper middle class. There is something of an industry in private junior school education and coaching in Kent - but I'm not sure this really has any significant impact on the local economy or Tory voters. So I'd think that if this mentality exists then it is more perception than reality.
quote:
There is a disclaimer to be entered, in that I'm not certain that this is the case among the specific people debating the situation here and now. It may be that hearing it debated as a proxy for the above time after time after time has just dulled my intellectual senses to the point where I can't hear anything else.
Well I can't answer for you or for anyone else here, but I believe selective education is a good thing for certain kinds of children. I'd still think it was a good thing if I was one the dole and lived on a council estate - providing my child could access it.
quote:
There is one definite charge, though: schools are being talked about as if they operate by some kind of magic, performing a standard process on every unit input into them. This is so far from being the case that I don't know where to start.
Who is saying that?
quote:
I don't expect to change the course of anything. I just needed to register a protest at this whole series of consumerist fantasies being projected onto a complex series of relational and developmental processes.
Well I'd be interested in hearing more about this point of view, even giving my misgivings about it above. At least it is more creative than the normal myths people put about relating to class sizes, funding and so on in grammar schools.
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arse
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ThunderBunk:
I see no concern for the welfare of the children going through the experience of education above. I see, as in mr cheesy's recent post, concern for the output and the effect of that on subsequent life and life chances, but I see no concern for the process. Selection can lead to an environment in which only the pointy-elbowed, aggressive and obnoxious get anywhere. This may seem like life outside education, but we are supposed to be building a genuinely plural society, and this is one anti-plural element (in that it allows only one psychological type to thrive) that selective education perpetuates.
Not even slightly. I am extremely concerned that something like 60% of all kids in Kent get a crappy school education. I just don't see that playing with my child's life is going to change that.
I'm sorry if I've not been clear enough: the school system in Kent is crap. Sending my child to a grammar was the best of a very bad system.
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arse
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
<snip>
I'm sorry if I've not been clear enough: the school system in Kent is crap. Sending my child to a grammar was the best of a very bad system.
Does that lead to the simple conclusion that the argument isn't between selective and non-selective systems but a good school system and a bad one?
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