The problem for me isn’t the fact that grammar/selective schools exist. The problem is that the selection process is flawed. These schools by default tend to choose most of their prospective pupils from more middle-class backgrounds. However, that minority who come from a working class background (and I was one of them), may well thrive a lot more than they would in their local comp. Perhaps we shouldn’t be focussing on abolishing them, but more on opening them up so that the selection process is fairer?

Most kids did not go to grammar schools and will not go to grammar schools if they are ever reintroduced. There can be no case for their return until there is some coherent policy on what happens to the 75% to 80% of 11 year olds who end up rejected and told they are second rate when they fail their entrance exam or – God help us – the interview.

The answer to your question is simple: Common sense and logic all of which is alien to the liberal left. You cannot improve education for everyone by destroying the best schools that set standards for others to aim for. Getting rid of streaming as well was the nail in the coffin. The position of the left is driven by envy, jealousy, spite and sheer stupidity on education and most of the major issues.

“Now, I don’t have a dog in this race: I don’t give a damn how much social mobility there is.”

Cheers. So you just thought you’d write an article sniping, without any attempt to get at the underlying issue which is probably the one of any political significance?

And here’s something you left out of your analysis: the right may think that grammar schools were great because the comprehensive system has turned out to be pretty fucking second rate.

Oh, and i’m not on the right, by the way. And i don’t think a return to grammar schools is the answer. But I can see why, looking at the crappy comp system that I endured, a lot of people might think that it is.

And one last point, when the right talk about “choice” in schools they usually mean choice for parents, not children. That choice would involve the parents being able to choose to have their kid(s) sit the 11 plus – whether or not they pass being a further question. You have to do more work to show some sort of incompatibility here.

This article is not of the standard I normally expect from LibCon…

@3

Your point, although immaturely confrontational, would be valid except it rests on a proposition that is entirely unproven: that the best schools are grammar schools.

Funny thing is that Thatcher thought the grammar schools were a socialistic idea – a form of government planning that decided who would be thinkers and workers. I would have throught the most right-wing (or rather libertarian) solution would be to privatise all the schools and let them set their own admissions policies.

Scotland seems to manage things better.

Fully comp but aspirational, streamed and better disciplined.

My partner was brought up on Dunfermline council estate, son of building labourer, but went to same school as local doctor’s kids and so on. Complete community mix, but streamed and pushed hard.
(Result – first class degree from Edinburgh University).

Surely Scottish labour MP’s don’t want to maintain a shitty English system while their own (ruled of course from Edinburgh) does better?? Surely not..!!!

3. So how do we explain the Tory opposition to a return to grammar schools?

The idea that the comprehensive system has somehow failed is also a bit difficult to swallow. Undoubtedly there are some dreadful comprehensive schools, but there are also some very, very good ones; and the decent ones greatly outnumber the bad ones. Why return to a grammar system that automatically writes off 75% of kids at te age of 11 when there is a comprehensive system that in many places is oing a lot of things right? Why not learn from these schools instead?

7. My kids go to comprehensive schools and are streamed in maths, science and English. There may well be a case for extending that to other subjects, but the idea that streaming does not exist is absurd.

Hm. Not sure what the point of the blog is. There are excellent non-selective schools throughout the UK which serve as beacons for families wanting to settle round them, and there are shite non-selective schools no one wants to send their kids to.

The real problem is that the worst non-selective schools are sending children out barely able to read and write, which is why so many people I know in Scotland have chosen to pay for their children to go into private education. They still regard themselves as on the left – but so many Scottish schools are now so bloody bad many parents feel they have no choice but to find the money.

4. Even if a grammar school had been available to you, what makes you think you would have ended up in it? The chances are that you would not have done. Most kids didn’t. And I have yet to see anyone seriously advocate the return of the secondary modern, which is what bringing back grammar schools would also entail.

The problem with the debate on education is that it is so rarely about coming up with ideas to improve it and more about rubbishing old ideas that other people have come up with.

Grammar schools are bad, comprehensive schools are bad, private schools are bad, home education is bad etc etc etc.

It’s dull and tedious.

Why not sit down for once and try to come up with a model for improving the damn system?

The blunt fact is that the current education system is a mess and is failing children, so kindly stop trying to score cheap political points and try being constructive for once.

Education shouldn’t be a game for political point scoring – it is too important for that.

Let an independent body look at the education system, look at what works all around the world and propose a non-political, evidence based solution.

If “option A” is found to be the best option – then rather than trying to rewrite the facts to suit your personal political morals, just get on with implementing the thing.

@3

So I take it Kent and Buckinghamshire (for example) have very high rates of social mobility with their grammar school systems then?

Thought not.

Oh, and another thought about why the right might like the idea of grammar schools: it could be serving as a proxy for frustration with the continued devaluation of standards in the education system.

Although this began under Major, the eagerness with which the Blair and then Brown administrations have run a scam in British education (whereby results are always going up, because the standards required are continuously going down) has been appalling.

We now have A levels which ask students to sit 2/3 of what they used to, and spread it out over two years, allowing failed papers to be re-sat indefinitely, for example. The result? In subjects like maths and sciences – where it’s easy to measure falling difficulty and standards (which is harder to do objectively in the humanities) – we’re falling way, way behind the rest of the world because British students are not receiving worthwhile educations.

Frustrated with this, I can see that perhaps many on the right blame the decline of the grammar system as the reason for the devaluation of educational standards generally. Now, I think they’re wrong about that – I think government meddling and interference and the politicisation of the sylabus in terms of citing ever-improving results to gain electoral success is the root cause – but you can see where it comes from, and it’s not silly or dishonest.

JW wrote

“Even if a grammar school had been available to you, what makes you think you would have ended up in it? The chances are that you would not have done. Most kids didn’t. And I have yet to see anyone seriously advocate the return of the secondary modern, which is what bringing back grammar schools would also entail.”

Whether or not I would have gotten into a grammar school is utterly besides the point (though FYI, I almost certainly would have).

It’s besides the point because I’m not in favour of grammar schools. But I’m not in favour of the comprehensive system either, which I’ve seen up close and personal both as a student and as a shorl-time teacher (of sorts), working in state and private and grammar systems. I think we need something new.

All I was trying to do was explain why, faced with the present comp system, some might look at the grammar system and think it worked better. Now, I think they are wrong. But if I was going to write an article about why people plumb for grammar schools, I’d think mentioning the perceived and real failures of the present system was pretty important….

As far as I can tell, though, most parents are not screaming out for grammar schools. Most seem to understand that creaming off kids at 11 means the chances are their kids will be left behind.

I am also sceptical of this idea that Britain is slipping ever downwards in the educational stakes because we have such a poor education system. What is the evidence for this?

@12

“The blunt fact is that the current education system is a mess”

That’s just hyperbole. It’s not a mess, it’s just not as good as it could be. We actually have a reasonably good education system that could be improved.

A big problem with this debate is too much politics and not enough sense of proportion, or evidence (but then much of education worldwide rests on a surprisingly thin evidence base, so the latter is going to be an issue for a while).

Ken McKenzie – I could not agree more.

The idea that the British education system is in a state of collapse is absurd. It is not. It is just not as good as it can and shoud be.

Something else I would throw into the mix is that in a lot of places – especially in London – we have seen young affluent, middle class professionals move into areas that were previously consigned to the working class. These professionals – journalists among them – have suddenly noticed that the schools they want to send their kids to are not very good and are full of disillusioned, demotivated teachers, and kids with low expectations and no support at home. The funny thing is that these schools have always been there. Only now, however, are people starting notice or care.

“As far as I can tell, though, most parents are not screaming out for grammar schools. Most seem to understand that creaming off kids at 11 means the chances are their kids will be left behind. ”

Once again, I’m not in favour of grammar schools. I *agree* that creaming off kids at 11 is a bad idea.

“I am also sceptical of this idea that Britain is slipping ever downwards in the educational stakes because we have such a poor education system. What is the evidence for this?”

I can only provide you with anecdotal evidence, I’m afraid, but here goes.

– My dad was a French and German teacher (at a comp) for 27 years. He said that by the end of his time there, he was only sometimes teaching things to his top set A2 (last year of A Level classes) that previously had been absolutely standard at the first year of GCSC/ O-level. He describes the move to AS/A2 A -levels as a joke, and claims that kids without a basic understanding of grammar can now get A* at GCSE. This is probably backed up by the fact that there is now no reading examination for GCSE languages.

– Let’s look at A Levels and the way they are examined. 15 years ago, students sat two three-hour papers in each A Level subject they took, at the end of 2 years. This meant that they were required to revise 2 years worth of material, to be examined with a “make or break” condition that re-sits simply did not happen. Things are different now. When AS-A2 was introduced, the two three-hour papers were broken down into 6 “modules”. The first three of these modules were to be sat at the end of first year, the other three at the end of second year. This means students were only required to reivse and prepare one year’s worth of work at a time, instead of two. On top of that, modules could be re-sat if a student did poorly. Then, for this academic year, the number of modules were reduced to 4 per subject; two to be sat in first year, two at the end of second. Again, modules can be re-sat indefinitely until a student gets a better grade. Now, can you honeslty say that the new system is not easier – in sheer terms of breadth of study required – than the old?

– And that’s not even touching on content. When I was doing A level economics, my (excellent) tutor used to set me the old A level papers for revision – the difference was unbelievable. Furthermore, I actually couldn’t do chunks of the old A Level papers because lots of stuff had been removed from the sylabus. Hence I turned up at University to read economics and had never encountered an indifference curve, which if you’re an economist will know is pretty insane, as that’s a stock building block of microeconomic theory. Previously this would have been taught at A Level economics, now it isn’t.

– Or another example. My tutor at university told me that at Glasgow university they’ve set the same exam to mathematics first years ever year since the 1960s, to assess newcomers’ abilities. The test has never changed (same questions every year) If my tutor is to be believed – and I see no reason why he would make this up, and he had friends at that department – it is now the case that for the last 10 years, the highest score for every new cohort has always been lower than the lowest score that new entrants achieved in the 1960s, 70s and 80s. This, the Glasgow department reckons, is because A Level maths is simply not teaching students to the standards previously expected.

Sorry I can’t give you concrete, objective facts, only anecdote. But I’ve yet to come across somebody who has spent more than 15 years in education – either at University or at school level – who doesn’t believe standards have fallen dramatically. So I’m inclined to believe that they have.

“So I take it Kent and Buckinghamshire (for example) have very high rates of social mobility with their grammar school systems then?

Thought not.”

Meanwhile pro-grammar school advocates can point to Nothern Ireland where even those in the non-Grammrs do well compared to those on the mainland.

In additiont o above post, problem in Kent (and I suspect the same is true in Buckingham) is that the middle classes buy their way into the areas where the grammars are. If there were more grammar schools there would be more opportunity for the working classes to go to them.

19. My own anecdote is when I compare what my kids had to do for their GCSEs and A Levels and what I had to do for my O and A levels, I find that they were far more challenged to come up with arguments and evidence, while everything that I did was based on the ability to learn by rote and memorise facts.

Again, I am not saying that things are great now. I am merely saying that theywere not that great way back when. The world has changed. Facts do not need to be memorised now as they are instantly available – far more important is to know how to build a case, study evidence and come to a coherent conclusion. Therefore, the way we teach our kids has had to change. It could be that we are not getting it right – though we do need more than anecdote to decide this – but what is certain is that going back to how and what used to be taugt is not going to help this country or its children.

So that’s a no then is it Richard? Or are you suggesting that only middle-class people live in Kent and Buckinghamshire?

What I don’t understand is why a lot of people on the right support Grammar schools.

It seems a lot like social engineering to me.

If comps are to be kept, I think some changes need to be made
1. Teach phonetics .

2. Setting in subjects from the age of 9 or so. Some students , especially girls are reading Austen at 9 yrs old, while boys struggle with comics.

3. Competitive sports. One hour ( on the field) of sport per day plus PE classes. Cadet forces to be offered.

4. Return to CSE and O Level and old fashioned A level. The academic ability is to broad to use one exam at 16yrs old. Someone who has the potential to read Maths at a top university cannot be stretched by an exam which is to test the abilities of someone who is very poor at the subject.

5. Reform schools to take troublemakers. Trouble makers are to be expelled. No child has the right to destroy another’s education. If a teacher spend 20 minutes of a 40 minute lesson trying to keep order, then only half the teaching has been undertaken.

6. Parents to sign contracts with school to attempt to achieve minimum standards of behaviour- reasonable bedtime, good breakfast, somewhere quiet to do homework, support the teachers etc etc, .

7. Good quality vocational training /apprenticeships to be offered from the age of 14.

8. Schools to be split into houses , with head of house responsible for child’s welfare.

9. Are schools above 1000 pupils just too large ?

10. All schools to have former policeman/ military person to help with discipline. At King’s Canterbury , this is called The Beagle who is often a former RSM. Too often parents are agressive with teachers when their children are disciplined. The yobbish parents are unlikely to pick a fight with a former senior NCO who runs the school CCF and assists with sports .

11. Comps to offer lesssons in table manners, how to dress for formal occasions ,general studies ( taken to museums, theatre, concerts) public speaking , interview techniques,and debating; in order to broaden pupils horizons and give them confidence. Pupils from comps need to aquire the sort of confidence associated with those from public schools.

Major roblems with many comps is the lack of discipline, pupils not being pushed and insufficient competitive sports to enable children to burn off their energy. What many parents object to is not the idea of comprehensives but the style of education which has been introduced and the way they are run. In reality , 40 yrs ago , many public schools were comprehensives , there was the scholarship stream for the bright, the middle stream for the average and the remove for the least able. Once the Headmaster of Ampleforth was asked how the pupils fom the various streams eneded up in life ” The scholars often end up working for those from the remove”. Public schools have always reognised that character was as important , if not more so, than brains.

Richard says

‘. . . it is now the case that for the last 10 years, the highest score for every new cohort has always been lower than the lowest score that new entrants achieved in the 1960s, 70s and 80s. This, the Glasgow department reckons, is because A Level maths is simply not teaching students to the standards previously expected.’

Yes indeed and the case for falling Scottish standards is more than than anecdotal –

http://www.atl.org.uk/education-news/Scottish-schools-lagging-behind-English-/%7B174385DB-9B21-4DED-8445-A520DDC4BD68%7D

Proffesor Paterson is quoted there as saying

‘Unintentionally, a vast experiment that tests some of these claims have been conducted since 1997 as policies in the four nations have diverged since devolution.

‘What is little realised, and never celebrated, is that the clear winner in this is the much-disdained England.’

As evidence of his claims he pointed to the recent Trends in International Mathematics and Science study, which showed that Scottish pupils fare worse in science subjects than in many other developed countries, the newspaper reports.’

I’m of the post-war generation of working class kids (and that was still a valid classification) who found an escape route through the grammar schools. The one I went to wasn’t perfect . It had some poor teachers (mainly because they’d never had to teach) and it had no system of pastoral care. But it enabled me to mix with kids from very different social backgrounds, and all of us to realise that levels of income did not have to determine your life chances. In my city 20% of children passed their “scholarship”, with the best of the rest getting a second chance a year later. The secondary moderns that took those who failed the 11+ were certainly no worse than most of the secondary schools in this city now. Many of those who would once have gone to grammar schools are now trapped in poor schools where any aspiration is stamped on by their peers.
You can’t bring back grammar schools, I know that. But the current system of selection by income is far worse. I agree very much with those who say that what’s needed is a radical rethinking of education in this country.

In my opinion there are two key factors which profoundly effect the educational performance of our children.
[1] first, and foremost, the so-called ‘pushy mum’ syndrome (although it could be a Dad of course) – i.e. parents who take on a significant proportion of teaching themselves, augmented by the odd tutor for maths or science perhaps.
This is a vital factor when children are learning to read or when they are trying to master hand control for writing, etc.

[2] the relative population of dysfunctional children in the class-room – i.e. those children who never really engage with the learning environment and drain a huge amount of energy from staff who inevitably default to a policing role which deprives the more receptive children of a great deal of the teacher’s energy.

Perhaps grammar schools would hold less appeal if it wasn’t for the fact that far too many parents are tripping over themselves to hand the entire responsibility for educating their children over to the state.

Think about it, a ration of 30 kids per teacher – how much quality time will any child ever receive?

If problematic families are sloughed off the remaining 30% becomes slightly more manageable because (in the main) the children attending grammar schools are being supported at home while tomorrow’s gang-bangers are few and far between compared to the numbers in an average inner city comp.

“British teenagers have plummeted down an international education league table, sparking fresh fears that schoolchildren are failing to master the basics.
They fell in a set of new rankings comparing reading, mathematics and science standards in 57 nations – accounting for 90 per cent of the world’s economy.
In reading, 15-year-olds in the UK dropped from seventh in 2000 to 17th, behind countries including Estonia and Liechtenstein. In maths, pupils fell from eighth to 24th – placing them below the international average.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1571444/Britain-nosedives-in-education-league-tables.html

The issue is not grammar schools the issue is selection at aged 11. Almost all of the main political parties in Britain now agree that getting rid of selection in England’s schools (there is no selection in Wales or Scotland and it is on the way out in Northern Ireland) would produce an immediate improvement in the overall exam performance of the nation’s children, reduce poverty and inequality in many of our most deprived inner-city areas and overtly and transparently attack privilege that all too often masquerades as excellence. However it is important to emphasise that it is selection that needs to be got rid of, no one is suggesting that particular schools should be closed. There is no reason why the remaining 164 grammar schools themselves should not remain pretty much as they are now. They would have the same buildings, the same governors, the same headteachers and staff, the same resources, the same curriculum, uniform and largely the same funding. The only real change will be in the academic profile of the pupils attending the school.

A selective system of schooling does not lead to diversity of provision it simply leads to division. Selection is not the creation of choice rather it is the denial of choice for the many. A selective system (be it based on ability or aptitude) does not help promote a diverse system of schooling; it simply helps perpetuate division in society as a whole. Selective schools are not escape routes from poverty, they do not offer good value for money and they do not help raise standards overall. The truth is that back when we had a grammar school in every town less than 6% of pupils went onto HE and the vast majority of them were from the affluent middle classes. Where is the evidence that selection offered escape routes for working class children?

Very good post. When are we going to get a government brave enough to use evidence based government rather than ‘common sense’ or reaction to tabloids?

What is all this rubbish about parents wanting choice? If parents want anything except a good, safe school within walking distance where their kids will be enabled to work to their potential, then they’re clearly more interested in the divisive social outcomes of schooling than in the benefits of actual education, and should have no say in the setting of policy. Education policy in this country seems to have at its heart some kind of delusional middle-class rat-race, where the two things that matter are escaping from the poor and gaining more GCSEs than you deserve, in order to pursue some other delusional goal, as if everyone’s going to get to Cambridge and then (presumably) be set for life. Actually educating the population to be a) good at something and b) fit members of society has long fallen by the wayside.

@cjcjc

Oh dear, you fell for that one. That really is a bit dim, even by your exalted standards. Radio 4 actually did a piece about how bad the reporting of PISA was at the time.

Not to belabour the point, but what happened was the ongoing survey was broadened out to include a whole bunch of smaller countries. In fact, three countries, Canada, New Zealand and Australia (the latter on one measure) overtook us, but mostly by amounts within the margin of error (many countries were quite close together).

Our scores remained unchanged. So that means three countries had improved aspects of their education system and we didn’t. Good for them.

The Telegraph were either dishonest or stupid. Let’s put it this way – the piece, at no point, mentions what score the UK got in that survey or in the previous one. The data were freely available, but had they been reported, would have made the article look stupid.

And, if you swallowed that story without checking it and in the hope that nobody who actually knew what they were talking about might be around, that makes you either dishonest or stupid as well. I suggest that next time you see something that confirms your prejudices, challenge them with the same force with which you’d challenge something that disagrees with them.

As an aside, Michael Gove also fell for it, and produced a statement which was pompous even for him. Still, nice to know he was statistically (or morally) illiterate in 2007. Let’s hope he’s better now.

This thread has some of the most unintentionally funny comments I’ve read here in a long time, mostly given by people with little or no experience of schools or children.

The best though is Charlie2’s hilarious 11 point plan.

If the comp is to flourish, then the bright pupil has to have the same chance of entering a top university as someone from a grammar school. Too often yobbish children and yobbish parents destroy the education of hard working bright children who have the potential to enter a top university . Comps should also offer the same standard of sports as grammar schools. Too often the headteacher of a comp trumpets that someone has gone to an ex poly to read media studies is success when the pupil should be reading law at oxbridge or engineering at Imperial. Comps need to offer the same rigorous academic training as grammar schools, tough A levels – modern languages , sciences, latin and greek and good quality career advice.

Islington in the 80 s was the typical of Labour run borough where educational standards collapsed . Though living in Islington , the Blairs sent their children to the London Oratory and paid for tutors from Westminster School; Dianne Abbott sends her son to City of London School, David Lammy went to Kings School , Peterborough, Harriet Harman sends her sons to London Oratory and St Olavs Grammar School, Orpington.

If Labour run councils and LEAs had not allowed standards in so many comps to fall, there would not be a push for grammar schools. The funniest thing I heard was a labour supporters buying property in N Oxford where many of the dons send their children, in order to say they sent their children to comprehensive; when they lived in London.

@19 “I can’t give you concrete, objective facts, only anecdote.”
It’s precisely this sort of witless remark that my post was objecting to. It’s a mix of ignorance of statistical principles – ever heard of small sample bias? – reluctance to look for serious research, and an egomaniacal faith in your own prejudice and chit-chat of a narrow circle of people.
My post was not, primarly, about the merits or not of grammar schools. As I said: “I say all this not to take a stand on education and social mobility, but rather to point out just how political opinions are shaped by inferential error rather than hard evidence.”
Mr Sagar has just provided yet another data-point of support for that view.

Charlie2, you know so little about children and schools it beggers belief but thankfully, you’ll never be let anywhere near either or educational policy.

[33] Well, unless you are taking about the odd LC commentator under 4 years old they have ALL had the experience of at least a decade in the educational system themselves.

Does this experience not count?

@37

No.

Next!

[38] Ahh, we can’t arrive at meaningful opinions based on our own experiences, or those of our mates or families, or those of workplace colleagues – and presumably bloggers are rather suspect as well?

Perhaps we must rely on educational ‘experts’ like Chris Woodhead & Co?

Who cares, all I know is that the opinions shared here, esp, the “solutions” that have been offered show a deep lack of understanding of school and children.

“You cannot support both more grammar schools and more choice in education. If schools select pupils, pupils cannot – except by happy coincidence – select their schools.”

Yeah! you are so right on this.

This also applies to many independent schools, most are selective so even if you can afford to pay they still harvest the “best” kids to bolster up their reputation and exam results. Even if not selective they find ways to push out the unsuitable children.

Why do people wish to send children to schools that churn out people who mainly go into a handful fo ridgid careers, as some Independent schools do?

Alan Milburn thinks social mobility is about being able to choose to wear a tie to work or go to university. Real social mobility is about being able to choose the best job to suit you regardless of what you wear and what qualifications are needed. Real education is education that provides many avenues.

@41

‘Milburn’, or rather the cross-party committee that produced the report, was supposed to look at access to certain professions. You appear to be slating them for not straying from their remit and producing the report that you wanted him to write.

@39

I’m with Daniel. Just having been to school doesn’t actually qualify you to make sweeping pronouncements on the educational system, in the same way that respiring constantly for your entire lifetime doesn’t make you an expert on atmospheric chemistry.

The only certain way to address the problem of lack of equality in education is to eliminate parental choice and make certain all children are given the same opportunities. It logically follows that the only way to do this is by ensuring that they all have the same educational experience.

So there should be no selection, no streaming, no setting and certainly no private education. Children with all aptitudes and from all classes should be able to mix together naturally, the bright with the dull, the motivated with the indolent. Not only will this build social cohesion but children will all be as equal as possible in their capabilities when they leave school. This will help to eliminate the unfairness of selection at eighteen when currently the allegedly “smart” ones go off to university leaving the rest behind..

There is no question in my mind that Eton will be a much better school when it has to take a proportion of its intake from the Windsor council estates and that Oxford and Cambridge will be much better universities when they intake their fair share of mentally retarded students.

“Meanwhile pro-grammar school advocates can point to Nothern Ireland where even those in the non-Grammrs do well compared to those on the mainland.”

Well, no. As you might intuitively guess from an academic selection system, “doing well” in a Northern Ireland school rather depends which one you go to. If you go to a secondary school, your chances of passing your GCSEs (5 or more A-Cs) is lower than the rest of the UK. If you go to a grammar school, your chances of straight-As at A-Level are the highest in the UK. Of course, the point about D’Ancona is rather moot as the schools are free. The article doesn’t seem sure whether its true enemy is academic-selecting or fee-paying schools.

ooh discipline that’ll solve it. NOT. The kids who don’t perform well in many schools know all about discipline. And they hate those that dish it out. You can stop them doing things wrong, but discipline will not motivate. Do we really want a cadre of sullen, disaffected children who absolutely hate their school, their better motivated peers, the school system, and by extension the whole of society. I hope not. I don’t think pushing them off high buildings is a good solution either. Children need to be allowed to grow, not beaten into shape. And to grow, they need hope that their growth will be worth the effort. Or they’ll put their ingenuity into dealing drugs, binge drinking and knife crime.

[42] Just having been to school doesn’t actually qualify you to make sweeping pronouncements on the educational system,

Well I think there are at least two elements to this.
Some commentators are talking about how education is (or seems to be) – others are addressing how education should be, or how they would like it to be.

If 10 or more years direct experience of something still does not qualify you to have an overview then I suspect I suspect you are abdicating responsibility to the ‘experts’, or the ideologues – not always the best approach in my opinion

@46:

Nah, your argument don’t cut it, going to school doesn’t mean you’re an expert on school.

The point is the level of the ideas presented here has been pretty poor.

So what is your proposal?

Personally I believe in grammar schools because I’ve seen how even bright pupils can be dragged down by peer pressure in state comps. Yes, it is a shame that it happens but such is the influence of others on children that if you want them to get the best education they can you need to get them into suitable peer groups as early as possible. Constanly catering to the lowest common denominator simply results in everyone being dragged down.

There are two groups of pupils – those who want to be taught, and those who don’t. Why should those who do be held back by a system that refuses to recognise that basic difference and sets its sights on teaching to those who refuse to learn?

#48 markm

That’s an important point.

A lot of the political education argument is pitched at the level “All parents want is a good school”. It’s said to be the reason “parents are forced to go private” as many state schools are, allegedly, bad schools.

In actual fact, the problem is parents want their children educated with a good peer group i.e. away from “undesirables” they consider will pollute their childrens minds. It is not the school that is the problem – it is the children within that school.

[47] do you extend this philosophy to all sphere’s of life – all lay views are invalidated due to lack of expertise?

Anyway, if you have such faith in the ‘experts’ why are so many disgruntled with the education system – both teachers and pupils?

[49] In actual fact, the problem is parents want their children educated with a good peer group i.e. away from “undesirables” they consider will pollute their childrens minds. It is not the school that is the problem – it is the children within that school.

Yes that has been my experience both as a pupil and as a parent.

Of course unless you are Chris Woodhead such opinions are automatically disqualified.

@50, you’re inventing an argument from nothing and I’ve not mentioned ‘experts’ I’ve referred only to people here talking bollocks.

Take care now!

@Ken McKenzie

If you really think the education system is just a bit below average – may I suggest you read the written submissions that modern school children write.

U MGHT B SUPRIZED

Ian, that’s what we like to call a wild generalisation and an ignoring that young people having slang and coded speak is as old as time.

[52] rubbish, you’re disqualifying a view based on personal experience.

You’ve criticised other poster while offering no alternative yourself.

I can only assume you speak with such authority on education because of the many years of painstaking research you have personally devoted to exploring the pros/cons of various educational models?

@55:

Again, you’re spoiling for a fight over nowt when you’d be best just to walk away. I’ve said all I’ve got to say on the matter, which is how funny the comments here are and how little some people seem to know about schools and children.

Cheers!

[56] just as I suspected – nothing substantial to add to the thread.

#51 a&e

So, middle-class parents will be dissatisfied with education so long as “undesirables” who might pollute their children’s minds go to school with them.

If this is the problem, it suggests that schools should be segregated on the basis of income and/or profession of parent. The Government is completely wrong in its strategy based on improving actual quality of education when the actual problem is parents dislike their children being educated with the plebs.

40. Daniel Hoffman Gill. My views are influenced by being educated in private schools and a comprehensive and working in industry both in this country and overseas.
The ability of the Japanese to improve the quality of their manufactured products and becomes leaders in many areas of technology between 1945 and 1980, was largely due to their highly skilled workforce – craftsmen, technicians, scientists and engineers.
The quality of german manufactured goods is dependent on a large skilled workforce- from craftsmen to those with doctorates in engineering/science. The Skoda is not just successful due to German investment but due to the Czech Republic educating and training a large skilled workforce from the 1920s onwards. The Czech armaments industry was a contributory factor in Hitler invading the country. In the UK, historcally the best crafstmen either were sent to university or studied Council of Engineering Exams( at nigth school at the local poly), which enabled them to become chartered engineers which was a very successful route for increasing social mobility. There used to be many chartered engineers who do have initials B.Sc after their name.

Today’s Indy p 6 A. Hall the new head of the Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency has said that he has closed factories in the UK and moved them overseas because of the lack of skilled employees in this country.

If the Tories win, they are likley to enable parents to set up their own schools based on the Swedish model. If many comps do not improve, this could be very popular for many parents.

#59 charlie2

I think what they’ll do is free schools to prevent working class and/or low ability children to enter them (which the current government has annoyed many middle-class parents by preventing schools from screening out children from poorer backgrounds by e.g. banning parental interviews).

This will improve the quality of state education a lot in the eyes of the middle-class. These schools will have good results (get rid of low ability children). They will not have socially undesirable children within them.

Actual quality of education will not really be affected (if schools are to have incentives to improve this, there must either be managerial control from the centre or schools must be prevented from choosing children). But as I said above, it’s not really the goal of an education policy popular with the middle class.

“The Government is completely wrong in its strategy based on improving actual quality of education when the actual problem is parents dislike their children being educated with the plebs.”

And how do you intend to solve that?

[58] So, middle-class parents will be dissatisfied with education so long as “undesirables” who might pollute their children’s minds go to school with them.

The middle class would cut their grandmother’s throat to get their children into the ‘right’ school (or at least lie about their true address) – they are certainly not going to be impressed with ‘undersirables’ if said undesirable continually disrupts the teaching environment (bullying, addiction to mobile phones, recreational drug use, etc).

“If this is the problem, it suggests that schools should be segregated on the basis of income and/or profession of parent” – schools ARE effectively segregated ….. by postcode.

“The Government is completely wrong in its strategy based on improving actual quality of education when the actual problem is parents dislike their children being educated with the plebs” – hard to know what this dreadful government want having wasted billions on poor choices in public service.

No, I didn’t say that parents dislike their children,
I said too many do not seem to realise how vital THEIR role is and not just for the education of their own child but the respect that should be instilled so that they do not disrupt the educational welfare of co-pupils.

You use the term ‘plebs’ but lets suppose YOU had a choice between sending your child to a comprehensive school in Hackney or Latymers in Enfield – hand on your heart which would you choose – then perhaps you could share your reasons for this choice?

#61 richard

Note this is not my opinion – more an observation that middle-class parents do not care about education but the quality (i.e. social background) of peer groups. There is no point trying to improve quality of *education* if this is the key problem. Instead, policy should focus on stopping undesirables polluting middle-class schools with their presence.

The solution to that problem would be to do what the Conservatives would. Allow schools to choose parents rather than parents choose schools. Parental interviews, more indicators of middle-classness (like can you pretend you are religious by giving up your time to go to church, make friends with the vicar and bake some cakes), subsidise private schools to bring them into the reach of the lower middle class. That kind of thing.

#62 a&e

I’m not being judgemental at all.

Just saying that the political debate is in the wrong place. If you want a education policy that wins middle-class votes, the focus should not be on improving standards but on stopping the working-class entering middle-class schools

@23
“What I don’t understand is why a lot of people on the right support Grammar schools.

It seems a lot like social engineering to me”

Ah, but that’s where the hypocrisy of the right is laid out for all to see – social engineering is fine as long as it benefits the wealthy, middle-class (or aspirational working-class) Tory voter, the rest can go hang. It’s what I like to call the “Selfish git feedback loop”.

@the a&e charge nurse

Not at all but as outlining a good education policy would take a good few weeks to thrash out, the down to earth hokum that passes for insight here for now just makes me laugh.

As do you.

Charlie2:

“My views are influenced by being educated in private schools and a comprehensive and working in industry both in this country and overseas.”

Cool, but your 11 point plan was comedy gold and unworkable.

@66
“Cool, but your 11 point plan was comedy gold and unworkable.”

He also seems oblivious to the fact that GCSEs are effectively streamed at Foundation, Intermediate and Higher levels, thus obviating the need for a separate CSE and O-Level.

Indeed but that about sums up the level of bloviating in this thread.

Another trope that seems to largely affect conservatives, but sometimes creeps leftwards is that adults seem to want education to be as horrible for their kids as it was for them – it’s an attitude I just don’t understand.

67. Some public schools are teaching IGCSEs which are closer to the old level because they stretch their pupils. I believe Singapore and Hong Kong teach IGCSEs Some public schools are now teaching IB and/or Cambridge Pre- U because they consider A Levels do not stretch their pupils. If the Cambridge Pre- U and /or IB considered better training by the top universities, where will this leave the comps only offering A Levels? The top UK universities have to compete with the best in the USA.
If pupils from comps further lose out to those from public and grammar shools due to the preference by the top universities for the IB or Cambridge Pre- U, this will only further reduce social mobility.

@69:

education as cruelty is a common right-wing theme.

@70:

I tell you something that will further reduce social mobility, your 11 point education plan.

@70
Again, with the assumption that Singapore, HK and public schools are right in this assertion. Where is your evidence?

@43

The only certain way to address the problem of lack of equality in education is to eliminate parental choice and make certain all children are given the same opportunities. It logically follows that the only way to do this is by ensuring that they all have the same educational experience.

So there should be no selection, no streaming, no setting and certainly no private education. Children with all aptitudes and from all classes should be able to mix together naturally, the bright with the dull, the motivated with the indolent. Not only will this build social cohesion but children will all be as equal as possible in their capabilities when they leave school. This will help to eliminate the unfairness of selection at eighteen when currently the allegedly “smart” ones go off to university leaving the rest behind..

There is no question in my mind that Eton will be a much better school when it has to take a proportion of its intake from the Windsor council estates and that Oxford and Cambridge will be much better universities when they intake their fair share of mentally retarded students.

As nobody has taken issue with any of the above, perhaps we need to go a little further down the same line.

To equalise life chances for everybody, would it not be fairer to remove all children from their parents at birth and bring them up in state run institutions where they could be exposed to a uniform stimulus throughout their childhood? In this environment signs of individuality and initiative could be eradicated and anyone found doing anything better than anybody else could be dealt with appropriately.

This kind of upbringing will perfectly prepare children to become good and valued citizens of the kind of state we are in the process of building.

The top UK universities have to compete with the best in the USA.

Not for British undergrads, they don’t.

@74
I think he was referring to anecdata again, in this instance the one or two cases a year where a grammar school pupil is rejected by Oxbridge and goes to Harvard instead, usually causing the Times and Torygraph to harrumph. Laura Spence and Mark Parker were two recent cases.

I’m pretty sure that these are exceptional cases though.

Chris Dillow @35 attacks Paul Sagar for using anecdotal evidence.

But is this fair? It’s not the case that anecdotal evidence has no weight at all. Rather, it’s the case that if anecdotal evidence is contradicted by good statistical analysis etc, we ought to reject the anecdotal evidence (because, as Chris Dillow points out, there are many reasons why anecdotal evidence might be unreliable that don’t apply to other sorts of evidence).

So, Dillow’s attack on Paul Sagar only has teeth if there is good non-anecdotal evidence that can act as a defeater for Sagar’s anecdotal evidence (for the view that standards have slipped in comps). Is there? I don’t know. But Dillow certainly didn’t bother to link to any. Given that, I’m inclined to take Sagar’s claims as prima facie plausible.

72. Blue pill nation.
Their success in their pupils obtaining 3 As at A Level especially in the harder subjects:-, maths, further maths, modern languages and sciences. Science , engineering and languages are subjects at the top universities, which have become dominated by those from grammar and public schools. Many public shools have set up establishments overseas catering for the weathy. The pupil from the comp is not only only competing with those from public and grammar schools in this country but also those educated in overseas establishments taught in the public school system. Parents who can afford to send their children to the overseras version of a public school, can probably afford the fees for a UK university . When it comes to careers , top international companies, even if they are British recruit from the best universities. A,
comprehensive pupil from an ex-poly is at a disadvantage when it comes to competing for a job with someone from overseas who went to a top university and completed, what the employer considers, is an academically respectable degree.

Globalisation means the best students fom around the world are competing for jobs in the best companes. Look at the number of Indians who graduate with american post grad degrees and work in Silicon Valley. Does anyone really think a silicon valley company , no matter how ethical, is going to recruit an american citizen from a poor university in preference to an Indian with a doctorate from Stanford, Berkely or Caltech?
Historically, entry to many middle class jobs was based on who one knew. Now it depends upon going to the right university . No matter how well connected a parent, hardly any organisation recruits to the high flyers streams, Tim Nice But Dim. This is a main reason why so many professional middle class parents are concerned about their childrens education. Michelle Obama’s parents did not send her to the local state university but Princeton and Harvard .

73. Pagar. Sounds like communism.

74. john b. Not yet, but more are going to the USA- actress from the Harry Potter films for one.

@77
“especially in the harder subjects:-, maths, further maths, modern languages and sciences”

That’s a bit subjective, isn’t it? Seems to me like you’re pushing the “Inscrutable Asians good at maths” trope to me, with a possible “We must stop the Chinese and Indians takign over the world” twist. Older-style exams weren’t any more “stretching” educationally, they were just more oriented to regurgitation of large quantities of facts as opposed to critical thinking, which is why top dollar is paid for coaching schemes to pass these exams.

And as for the rest of your answer, there’s very little point in doing maths and engineering in the hope of getting a job in this country, as the Tory move to a service-based economy in the ’80s pretty much extinguished most of our industries in which they’d have be useful. In such endeavours, we’re mainly doing work for or with overseas firms, in which case the source of the qualification a candidate has is pretty immaterial. And the “Indian with a doctorate from Caltech [et al]” in all likelihood built up to that doctorate with an undergrad degree from his or her home country, so I don’t see what you’re driving at.

78. Blue pill nation. 75% of Winchester College 6 th form students take Maths A level. Winchester College is now taking part in Maths , Physics and Chemistry Olympiads in order to prove itself on the international stage. If Winchester College can demonstrate it is the best school in the World at Maths, Physics and Chemistry, it can market itself to the millionaires of the World who wish to to send their children to the top universities.

If one looks at the web site for many public and grammar schools, they are obtaining large numbers of grade As in A levels in the harder subjects.

When a retired professor from Imperial College who is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering and an admissions tutor from IC tell me entry standards have slipped, I believe them.

The succes of Britain at winning Nobel Prizes and in taking out patents shows the UK still is capable of producing great scientists . The problem is that too many scientists end up working in City of London. I remember talking to a scientist from UCL , the problem for the department was that many of those with doctorates left for the “City” .

Britain has a manufacturing capability which accounts for 15% of GDP, Germany’s is 25% of GDP. Companies such as Rolls Royce Aero Engines, Shell, BP, Rio Tinto, Unilever, consulting engineers, grand prix teams , drugs companies are Wold Class; we just need more of them.

Globalisation means the best students fom around the world are competing for jobs in the best companies. Children from comps have to compete with those from grammar and public schools for places at the best universities and employment in the best companies but also with those from overseas . Therefore, globalisation makes competition tougher for many people. Any British football player is now competing with people from around the World in order to play for a club in the Premier League.

How do we ensure the bright child from an inner city comprehensive has the same chance of obtaining the 3 or 4 As at “A” level in the hard subjects required to enter a top university, as someone from comprehensive in an affluent suburb, grammar or public school? If this cannot be achieved, many middle class professional parents will suport grammar schools or move to catchment areas of good comprehensives , often in the suburbs and pay for private tuition?

75

This report says that the number of UK students at American universities is “still less than 10,000“. Presumably in the thousands then.

Q: Why does the right keep believing in grammar schools?

A: Because some parts of the right are nostalgic, stupid and keep missing the point.

Remember how David Willetts was moved from Education for suggesting that grammar schools didn’t work? Truth was, he was right, and the Tories (and their media allies) were wrong, not least because no-one ever advocates secondary moderns as the logical counterpart of a return to a grammar school model, just as grammar school advocates always assume them and theirs will get in, which might not be the case: allowing the occasional bright working-class kid in means that some middle class kid will lose out, and hell hath no fury like a middle class sense of entitlement.

What Willets realised was that the real divide was not grammars v comprehensives, but selection v non-selection; the use of a ‘death or glory’/one-off cup final contest in the form of the 11+ versus a system designed to focus on developing the abilities of all children. For all her faults, Hazel Blears summed it up well: she passed the 11+ and became a Cabinet Minister; her brother didn’t, and drives a bus. Recall how Blunkett told Labour supporters: ‘Read my lips: no selection’. The fact that he reneged on that pledge is both typical of New Labour and something the grammar school nostalgics have repeatedly overlooked. As it is, thanks to New Labour’s education reforms, schools can now select:

– by specialism (e.g. languages or sport)

– by religious denomination (why else encourage ‘faith schools’?)

– by status (Academies have far greater freedom than other types of school)

– by gender (the belief that single-sex schools for girls will improve their results, while boys’ results would be better in mixed schools – you do the math to square that circle)

– by ‘aptitude’ (though this is only a small percentage, there’s nothing to stop the current or next government from raising it)

In short, New Labour has provided all the tools to reintroduce selective education in schools, with ‘specialist vocational academies for good Catholic boys’ as the new secondary moderns, if the grammar school-obsessed Tories weren’t so stupid or nostalgic to realise it.

80. Bishop Hill. The quality needs to be considered as well. Someone turning down Cambridge for MIT to study biophysics is a major loss to the UK. The loss of top footballers to foreign clubs in the 70s and 80s was loss to the UK.

Economic writers such as H McRrae and Will Hutton have pointed that much economic growth will come ideaopolis ‘s ; areas where top universities support high tech companies such as silicon valley and NE USA, with Harvard, MIT etc, to drive economic growth. The UK needs Anna Labno more than she needs the UK. How many comps produce students with 6 As at “A” level? The brain drain of able crafstmen, scientists and engineers to the USA and to lesser extent Australia , in the 50s to 80s, could have only harmed British industry.

This issue has only been brought to the surface because of Peter Hitchens’ complete trouncing of Jim Knight on radio 4 last friday. His website has debated the grammar school issue extensively for years. This site never mentions the issue until yesterday and then publishes a pathetic ill researched 30-line post, followed by reams of ignorant adolescent rambling. Every single one of the arguments against grammar schools has been addressed and defeated by Hitchens repeatedly on his blog and in his new book. You should read it sometime. You all have something in common with Hitchens in that he used to be a deluded left-wing prick when he was your age too. But slowly as he grew older and fatter, he realised that the left is wrong about everything.

Would suggest re-reading the very thoughtful comment of Alex #31.

As ever, you are all looking in totally the wrong place.
Grammar Schools are excellent and produce, even by New Labour Standards, fine results.
BUT
The place to look is the Secondary moderns. In Lincolnshire, we have the grammar-Secondary modern system. the examination results in the Secondary Moderns are about the same as in the Cambridgeshire Comprehensives. But because the schools are smaller and more local and because they still have crafts taught by craftsmen, they produce a much nicer and more civilized person.
Oh – and if people want to (homework, social life, future employment, family pressure) – the Grammar Schools are welcoming when any Secondary modern pupil wants to join their 6th form.

@79
Most kids don’t want to become engineers or scientists these days, because you have to spend your twenties, thirties and in some cases, forties in fairly low-paid positions. No, they want the nice flat in Kensington or the big mansion in Surrey now and the way to do that is to become a pop star, TV presenter, footballer or other “media personality”. Hell, inner-city estate kids see dealers driving around in cars that cost more than the rent on their flat for the year by their mid-twenties, whereas if they’d gone to Uni and studied engineering they’d still be 2 years into paying off the loan they used ot get the qualification – and even if they get a well-paid job, that loan’s going to reduce their monthly income by a third for the following decade. Where is the motivation?

@83
Peter Hitchens has only done one notable thing in his life, and that is make his odious brother sound sane and reasonable by comparison.

Again, the Tory love of all things naturally skewed is that no matter what position a Tory occupies in society, they can look down their nose at someone.

79. Bluepillnation. Good point about low pay in many engineering jobs. However, at the top end, more specialist areas pay has increased e.g reservoir/petroleum engieering, chemical engineering , drugs industry, mechanical engineering with Rolls Royce . There is always the option of working in the USA.

Where money is being made is where people set up companies to develop new technologies and sell them to the large organisations. In fact whether in mechanical , medical/drug, electronic, computer, mineral exploration, much of the innovative work is done by the small companies which then sell out to the large companies. This is why UK universities setting up companies to commercialise their research so important the for the future success of this country( W Hutton and H McRae have written on this subject). The problem is that 24% of R and D expenditure is around London and university research is dominated by Oxford, Cambridge and London. Many of these small high tech companies have been set up by people from the large companies/organisations( which are located in S England) frustrated by the lack of innovation. This is why it is so important for inner city kids to have the education to enable them to enter Oxbridge, Imperial , UCL, LSE, Kings, Manchester, etc in order to obtain at least a masters degreeso that they can be employed by companies working in high value advanced science and engineering.

An engineer in their late 20s returning to to their inner city comp, explaining their well paid work on FI Grand prix teams and time spent travelling the World, would probably be quite exciting for the pupils.

Adrian, you are a terrible old tart, now bugger off!

@80 the 10,000 figure is for all students, including graduate students and undergrad students from UK universities doing one-year placements in the US. They’ll utterly dwarf undergrads doing the full four years at a US institution. The “Harvard has doubled its number of UK undergrads from seven to 15” stat is more representative.

@87
How about making these big beneficent corporates you so admire more interested in taking graduates form outside Oxbridge or London – surely breaking the traditionalist stranglehold will allow opportunity for more rather than trying to force kids into an outdated traditionalist education system where they’ll struggle to survive socially?

http://www.workingclasstory.com/2009/07/liberal-classism.html

Great, use LC to promote your own daft ideas…

@91
Ah, the “smear the messenger” tactic. I note you’re highlighting the humorous aside about Matthew D’Ancona’s name rather than the fact that his (as you point out) Maltese father bought his way into privileged educational circles by paying more in school fees than an honest working-class person on minimum wage makes altogether in a year.

90. When working at the leading edge of technology, the companies have to recruit the best. If one looks at winning Nobel Prizes, and income for research , both government and private, then a few universities dominate the UK; in fact like most countries. There was an assessment of top labs throughout the World as to which one was undertaking the most leading research. The top lab in the world was considered either the Cavendish or MRC at Cambridge.

When it comes to economics, there are regular moves between the LSE and U of Chicago because they are about the best in this subject. It is similar to choosing the national sports squad . Most of theplayers will come from a few top clubs. If the manager picked equal numbers of players from all the leagues , I cannot see it improving performance.

In summary, I would like to see poor children from inner city comprehensives obtain the A Levels in maths, sciences and modern languages in order to enter our top universities so as to increase social mobility. However many comprehensives do not deliver the results. How are these poor comprehensives to improve sufficiently, such that aspirational parents, who have able children, know that they are capable of teaching to the same high standard as public or grammar schools in all subjects?

Again – how about getting companies to recruit from further afield? Much, much less socially divisive than forcing estate kids to ape the upper-middle classes in their pursuit of being on top of the same old divided society. The only thing that suggests the places you list are the “best” is subjective traditionalism, and it is this I argue should be stamped out.

73. Pagar. Sounds like communism.

If anyone catches me attempting irony in a blog post again they can eat my children. That will save me having to decide how to educate them.