My oh my there really is some furore in the papers this morning wondering whether the "grammar schools issue" is Cameron's "clause IV moment". Cameron has even penned an article for the Times which (in effect) attacks people like Tim Montgomerie on ConservativeHome for being a backward looking old reactionary on the issue.
Frankly I don't think using language like "delusional" is necessarily fair, it's far easier just to say that those wanting more grammar schools to be created are just wrong. What it all really boils down to is making all schools worth going too.
This is not to say that I regret academic selection of course. In fact I think there should be more of it within schools. Not setting, but real and proper streaming. The argument that gets made about how telling kids they are failures early psychologically damages them is nonsense.
We live in a competitive society, shielding children from the harsh reality of failure is neither sensible nor particular good. Failure makes you stronger. I should know, I failed my 12+, it took an expulsion from Secondary Modern to get me into a grammar school, but the failure didn't psychologically damage me at all.
A verbal reasoning test, which is all the 12+ in Buckinghamshire is, is not the be all and end all of ascertaining academic ability. Performance in subjects is where the true value of selection lies, and my entrance exam to Grammar was just that, a test of English, Maths and oddly, French.
Encouraging schools to properly stream their pupils into groups of roughly equal ability within core subjects is a far superior way of ending the one size fits all solution that panders to the lowest common denominator i.e. the thick kids.
Society is made up of clever people and not so clever people. Pretending it isn't within the structure and running of a school is what causes the real damage because when the kids leave they have hardly any experience of how tough life can actually be.
11 comments:
It is easy to show that grammar schools are good for the country, in a cost effective way. For one thing, they raise the standard of our university entrants, and good things lead from there. Grammar schools are elitist (which is good or bad according to taste).
DC claims, accurately, that re-introducing grammar schools is not a vote winner for the tories. Those in favour will vote tory anyway (is socialist GB more likely to give them the education system they want?).
I agree with much that you say. I moved from a Secondary Modern to a Grammar School to find the standard of teaching and discipline far superior. This made the process of learning both easier and more fun.
I wouldn't call those friends I left behind failures though. I have long thought that our schools should treat their pupils as individuals and try to sharpen and hone whatever talents they have. What is the point of making a person learn something that they have no ability or interest in? What is the point of not letting a person learn something that they have ability and interst in?
Life is pecious, why waste young lives making them fit into a rgid state controlled syllabus?
I guess our our dave it trying to be everything to everybody and it will end in tears ,his tears if he's not careful ,I make no bones I wanted DD still do, everytime time I hear dave radio/tv I cringe , I keep wondering what he is going to say next.
I fully endorse your statement Dizzy about making schools worthwhile to go to. Regardless of what one calls them.
It is to that end I suggest that all MPs should be made to use the state education system for their own children.
When they have a vested interest in improving schooling in this country, we might start to see things getting better.
I have never understood this hangup about grammar schools down South, I can well understand why they are divisive and can be open to claims of unfair advantage by parents that can afford tuition.
Grammar schools were not available as such or an issue in Scotland, we just employed a very good and effective system of streaming within the local comp. I know that during my school years the academic results were highlighted in the UK as being good or higher than the English average which I think blows a hole in the argument that that bright kids need to be taught in a different school.
No one felt either superior or disadvantaged because they were deemed a hit or a miss at 11.
A thoughtful item, as always. Doesn't this episode highlight the difference between party and public interest? Cameron is trying to close down an area of difference between the Conservatives and Labour in the interest of getting into power, knowing that traditional, Grammar School-supporting Tories have nowhere else to go. But are our childrens' interests best served by this strategy? Bristol University research published on the day David Willetts made his speech last week suggested that when disadvantaged children get to Grammar Schools, they do better. At the same time, the jury is still out on the effectiveness of academies. The problem - a much tougher one for any party - is how encourage parents (who may themselves have had little encouragement) to develop a domestic culture of enquiry and aspiration. The Asian community is an example of how disadvantage need not be a barrier to educational attainment if desire and a perception of the importance of a means to an end is fostered.
Whats the difference between setting and streaming?
setting uses a broad brush. So, a pupil might be in the considered to be in the highest set. Thatmeans they go in the highest set for example, in all the setted subjects whethere they are great at each subject or not.
Streaming actually moves pupils around so the ones who are rubbish at math but great english, or vice versa, are not chucked in the wrong paces class for thier ability.
My understanding is opposite to this Dizzy. Streams are by overall in the round ability and may each consist of several forms some of which might be specialised. And sets are for groups (sometimes combined with other form members or often smaller) by subject.
At school, in Bucks, for five years I was in one of two forms in a particular stream, with a speciality, though we were only in sets for games and maths or additional maths, and in small groups where the form split for different languages.
Most things were taught as full class.
My daughter has streams, forms and sets also in her community high school. Most things setted.
More mixed ability even within streams and so more setting there.
I wish Gordy would take the every school a good school meme further (possibly by closing/absorbing as many GSs as Maggie did). But what is beginning to happen in Manchester (which has a mixed private-state-faith economy which makes the state schools look particularly bad) is for HMC schools to try to come back and at least one has been accepted already.
When I was at school, sets were where you would be in the top set for maths and automatically in the top set for the others as a result.
The downside of streaming within one large school, according to my mate who's a teacher in one, is that the thick and disruptive kids end up beating the snot out of the bright ones - leading to them "wising up" by "dumbing down" PDQ.
Moving them to a separate school (call it a grammar if you must) at least obviates this problem.
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