Despair has much as you like! I rather do the best I can to push and inspire my child with integrity than to play the system so I can "jump the queue".

Yes, let's focus on these monstrous parents who will do pretty much anything to make sure their kids have a good start in life and get into a good university. But let's turn a blind eye to (or even worse, mollycoddle) all the conformist, 'it's not my fault it's someone else's' parents who never inspire or push their kids to achieve anything. Honestly, I despair sometimes.

"I recently heard that the new thing is for privately educated students to transfer to the state system in the last year of their A levels, and get intensive tutoring. Oxbridge will therefore consider their application more seriously so as to fill their quota of state school kids. Where there is a will, there is a way! I genuinely think aspirations and achievement have to start in the family, the school is an enabler....[/quote]

Another way to play the system! Like renting in a school catchment while your actual family home is miles away,going to Church with the sole purpose of getting a school place (no integrity) ,extreme tutoring (in my view the equivalent of training Circus Monkeys!),etc.

Segregation? Apartheid? to describe Grammar schools? I don't understand how you can belittle such tragic human events by comparing the return of Grammar school to them. Maybe you should think more about what you are saying before comparing a first world schooling system to events which caused the death, imprisonment and subjugation of millions of people.....

To be honest, those who want to get ahead will do so, whatever the system. This is not a poor country in Africa or Latin America where what you are born into really dictates what your life will be (and I come from one of those countries so I can tell you first hand the difference is enormous).
I recently heard that the new thing is for privately educated students to transfer to the state system in the last year of their A levels, and get intensive tutoring. Oxbridge will therefore consider their application more seriously so as to fill their quota of state school kids. Where there is a will, there is a way! I genuinely think aspirations and achievement have to start in the family, the school is an enabler....

In my view, GS places for those who have ever attended independent schooling for greater than 8 hours a week should be strictly limited to say.. 20%

of topic...
Also, mass emigration from state to independent in year 4 should be banned. Independent schools should be outlawed from taking such children

Segregation as an outcome whether on the basis of race, gender or class is all equally bad IMO. Go tell Emmeline Pankhurst. The re-introduction of separate and selective state schools in a so called progressive/liberal society is especially insidious in this day and age. Then again, as the Judge said in Caddyshack '..the world needs ditch diggers too..'

[quote="Scottov"]I read an interesting article on this subject not so long ago, and I'm going to reproduce some of its soaring rhetoric as it chimed with me. it may not ring so true with others, but it's there to digest as you will

"[i]To borrow an analogy from Allison Pearson of the Daily Telegraph, young people capable of elite sports deserve an education commensurate with their ability, and this is usually best done when they are with other elite sportsmen and women. No one argues with this; the whole country applauds the success this produces. Why do we not do the same with those who are academically interested and gifted? They are both elements of human flourishing; knowledge and play are both, to use the language of John Finnis, “basic” or fundamental or intrinsic goods. They are both worth pursuing and dedicating oneself to. They are both elements in a civil society, both elements of a common good.

Some people soar in the realm of ideas; others do not. Why should there not be establishments in which these people can soar with the least hindrance and the most encouragement? A flourishing society would surely have a large variety of educational possibilities, and it is not for want of money that grammar schools are forbidden. Why should they not be part of a genuinely pluralist vision of society in which there are many different ways for people to flourish?

Grammar schools are not a panacea, but they are not a bogeyman either. They cater very well for the academically motivated; they give opportunities for those who might not have so many; and if they were socially divisive, why has social mobility now declined? Some people suggested that availability of contraception would reduce abortion; yet the opposite has happened. Some people suggested that the number of grammar schools be reduced and social mobility and cohesion will be improved. The opposite has happened. There must be something wrong with the logic here too.

We cannot all be Olympians academically, but some can, and the comprehensive system will and does only produce these if there is, ironically, clear selection within it. Why should there not also be grammar schools to enhance this possibility further?[/i][/quote]

Yeah, I’d disagree with almost all of that, fairly standard mindless Telegraph propaganda.

A few points, in no particular order:

a) A first advantage of setting within a school over the 11+ - it’s done on the basis of observation over the whole year of the level of kids with an average age of 12, & strongly informed in particular by exams taken by kids with an average age of 12.5. The 11+ turns on a single exam taken by kids with an average age of 10.5.

b) A second advantage of setting – although movement between GS & modern doesn’t *never* happen, & movement between comprehensive sets isn’t an *everyday* occurrence, the latter is vastly, vastly easier & more common, even though the cutoff is much more precise, being based on much better information [see pts [a] & [c]].

c) A third advantage of setting - end of year exams in a comprehensive are sat by [all, without exception] pupils who’ve had largely the same education over the last 12 months, unlike grammar exams, where, with strictly rationed GS places, private tutors and/or prep will always be the norm for the rich, meaning [even to the fairly limited extent that poorer parents are aware enough to register their kids for the 11+] that you’ve got kids going in with really wildly differing levels of preparedness, making the test more or less one of parental means only.

d) The sport analogy is a really bad one because the point there is that there’s not enough money for, or point in, more than a tiny handful of people to engage in the really intensive elite training [since an average person will, with the best will in the world, never be able to go the olympics]. The key point isn’t so much the elite all being grouped together, rather it’s that the training doesn’t make sense for anyone who’s outside the elite. 20 hours of sports training every week would be worse than useless for someone who’s even well above average, it’s only got any chance of paying off for the truly gifted. This isn’t the case at all with modern schools. Unfair as selection may have been, the logic for GGs was a lot better & more coherent back in the 60s or 70s, when O levels & especially A levels were set at a level of difficulty that, with the best will in the world, wasn’t for everybody, O levels were aimed at academically maybe the top 20-25% of the population, A levels much less than that. That level of difficulty was [possibly] appropriate for the immediate post-war economy, where realistically only a very small proportion of the population would go on to do work that could be even loosely termed ‘cognitively challenging’. But we don’t have anything like that system of exams now, and without it just bringing back GSs is segregation as pretty much an end in itself.

e) The claim that GSs ever promote or promoted social mobility is questionable at best. Three of the four PMs up to & including Thatcher went to GSs, PM is obviously a really high profile job & this [alongside daft propaganda such as the article quoted here obviously] helped skew perceptions somewhat, e.g. looking at only one other measure, Oxford took in 34% of its intake from the state sector in 1961, in 2016 the figure was 59% (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-37250916). The evidence from the few places where the system’s in place now is highly dubious, e.g. see https://www.ifs.org.uk/publications/8469.


Lastly though, GSs are almost beyond doubt a bad thing overall but it's incredibly offensive to compare them with something as genuinely heinous as apartheid.

I agree with you Scottov. It's not the rich who are being left behind. That's the point. It's the less well off. For clarity, I have nothing against having a lot of money if that is ones motivation in life. It's about equality of opportunity and breaking the poverty cycle.

To put some of my comments into context: I went to a co-ed state, boarding grammar school many, many years ago. I was subjected to extreme sexist bullying because I did science and maths "A" levels and the standard of teaching was, in general, pretty complacent and poor. I trained to be a teacher in my 30's and taught in comprehensive schools. Grammar schools, like any other school, may be good or may be poor and, when they are poor, they are letting down some of our best talent.

1. to assume that bullying in grammar schools does not exist is a false assumption. It exists in any school which does not take action against bullying and which encourages any form of elitism, whether sporting, academic or other.
2. as indicated from my experience, to assume that all grammar schools provide excellent education is a false assumption. To look at exam results each year disproves this, given that supposedly grammar schools are educating the "top" of the ability range. Grammar schools should, therefore, get 100% 5 GCSEs including E/M.
3. it is impossible to accurately assess all children based on a test which takes place on any particular day and which tests children as much as one year apart in age.
Comprehensive schools which set (not stream) allow children to perform well in the areas where they excel and take account of those areas where they are weaker, rather than judging them as a block. It also allows greater flexibility.

[quote="The NSC"]2.5% of FSM pupils attend grammars compared to the national figure of 13.2% at secondary level. On a slight tangent 6% of private school pupils occupy 60-80% of the establishment. Neither soaring rhetoric or hysteria just facts.

It's a rigged system in favour of the rich. No experts such as the EPI or Sutton Trust support grammars as a means of mitigating the attainment gap. It's segregation of the rich and the poor legislated for by the rich.

To talk about meritocracy one should understand the original intent of the concept.[/quote]

One should understand the intent and the principles I agree.

I'm just not seeing it though.

Idiotic drivel like "rigged system in favour of the rich" and gibberish such as "the establishment" just sets out your whole stall as something ridiculous not to be taken seriously.

The rich already have access to the best private schools. They're not the ones being left behind

2.5% of FSM pupils attend grammars compared to the national figure of 13.2% at secondary level. On a slight tangent 6% of private school pupils occupy 60-80% of the establishment. Neither soaring rhetoric or hysteria just facts.

It's a rigged system in favour of the rich. No experts such as the EPI or Sutton Trust support grammars as a means of mitigating the attainment gap. It's segregation of the rich and the poor legislated for by the rich.

To talk about meritocracy one should understand the original intent of the concept.

I read an interesting article on this subject not so long ago, and I'm going to reproduce some of its soaring rhetoric as it chimed with me. it may not ring so true with others, but it's there to digest as you will

"[i]To borrow an analogy from Allison Pearson of the Daily Telegraph, young people capable of elite sports deserve an education commensurate with their ability, and this is usually best done when they are with other elite sportsmen and women. No one argues with this; the whole country applauds the success this produces. Why do we not do the same with those who are academically interested and gifted? They are both elements of human flourishing; knowledge and play are both, to use the language of John Finnis, “basic” or fundamental or intrinsic goods. They are both worth pursuing and dedicating oneself to. They are both elements in a civil society, both elements of a common good.

Some people soar in the realm of ideas; others do not. Why should there not be establishments in which these people can soar with the least hindrance and the most encouragement? A flourishing society would surely have a large variety of educational possibilities, and it is not for want of money that grammar schools are forbidden. Why should they not be part of a genuinely pluralist vision of society in which there are many different ways for people to flourish?

Grammar schools are not a panacea, but they are not a bogeyman either. They cater very well for the academically motivated; they give opportunities for those who might not have so many; and if they were socially divisive, why has social mobility now declined? Some people suggested that availability of contraception would reduce abortion; yet the opposite has happened. Some people suggested that the number of grammar schools be reduced and social mobility and cohesion will be improved. The opposite has happened. There must be something wrong with the logic here too.

We cannot all be Olympians academically, but some can, and the comprehensive system will and does only produce these if there is, ironically, clear selection within it. Why should there not also be grammar schools to enhance this possibility further?[/i]

I find the arguments against grammar schools somewhat hysterical and nonsensical.

firstly they never went away, there are a large number of them in somerset, dorset & wiltshire amongst other places.

presumably those who do not believe in selective education also believe streaming doesn't exist?

identification for talent exists in all sorts of ways, whether sport, music etc. society does move forward when those with talent are nurtured, and advocating against the identification and nurturing of talent is arguing for a race to the bottom.

a true meritocracy doesn't fear streaming or selection, and should want those of ability without means to be given every chance to flourish. the private sector do a good job of this through extensive bursary and scholarship programmes but they can't (and shouldn't) do it alone.

Sorry, obviously meant 70 - 80% of children who do go to academies (i.e. not grammar schools).