Reintroduction of Secondary modern schools for majority of children.

I just cannot get over the "my children are better than your children so should have better educational opportunities" attitude.

We move yet further to the right

I used to live opposite this school in Hull in the 90s.

www.hymerscollege.co.uk/our-history

About 25% of the pupils now come from ethnic minorities which shows how much their parents value their education.
A shame it's a fee-paying school. Those parents could do so much to help other schools in the area.
When I was growing up round the corner from it in the 50s and 60s, there were no ethnic minority pupils going to it.

When it comes to social mobility my best friend at school had a widowed mother and, although she had to leave after A Levels, she went on to do very well, taking further qualifications while she worked. My other friend lived in a council flat, had working class parents, but went on to college with me and got a good job in publishing. They were both helped by going to a Grammar school but I think they would have done just as well at a modern Comprehensive - and probably had more choices of subject.

I have already said I could have put my point over better and I am perfectly well aware of how much some immigrant communities value education, as I have said previously. I am not going to waste time trying to justify myself. However, I regard the point I made as being perfectly valid. I will let others rail against it as they will.

The figures I copied should start:

74.4%
Chinese

and end:

56.6%
UK National Average

(the actual graph would not copy)

Greyduster It seems that, along with every other ill in society, immigrants are to be blamed for falling educational standards. You stated that:

"At the other end of the scale, you have inner city areas with large immigrant populations, some of whom, even in their early teens, have never been to school. They have very little or no English and are not educationally socialised. These schools struggle to recruit decent teachers and when they can recruit them, they struggle to keep them in the face of constant disruptive behaviour which makes teaching a nightmare and no-one is working to promote any kind of ethos."

In fact these figures and following commentary in the Spectator in February 2016 show something quite different:

GCSE performance by ethnicity

Proportion of pupils achieving five GCSEs at grade A*-C, including English and maths (in England in 2013/14)
UK national average
74.4%
Chinese
72.9%
Indian
65.9%
Irish
62.2%
Any other Asian
61.3%
Bangladeshi
56.8%
White and Black African
56.8%
Any other ethnic minority
56.6%
UK national average

"The over-performance of ethnic minorities is striking feature of education in the UK ..... One recent study found that Black Africans underperform whites at primary school, but by the end of secondary school their attainment is about a third better. And yes, the Poles and East Africans may be wealthier than the average immigrant. But even Bangladeshis, one of the poorest ethnic groups in England, see their children’s attainment rise to a par with the average White British – not the poor White British – by the age of 16.

Exactly, Suedonim.
Unfortunately the only way they will get a chance is if those who are vociferous about a better school for their children have to try and improve their own local schools.
Not every chlid has parents who can fight for their chances of a better education. That's why we need to try and improve all schools for all children, not just provide grammar schools for the few.
Hence Penstemmon's OP which appears to have been forgotten about in praise for grammar schools.

And what about less bright children who want to work? Shouldn't they also get a chance in life?

Why not make school a positive environment for all pupils?

Greyduster - your description of inner city schools is exactly what my children had. I reiterate, grammar schools would lift the brightest kids who want to work out of that environment.

trisher I agree with you that many immigrant populations are committed to their children getting a good education and perhaps I could have phrased it better, but the problems I have outlined exist in the city I live in and present what must be an unwelcome difficulty for the schools they attend. As I said, there are partnership initiatives being put in place to help both the schools and the pupils.

There are middle class parents who are looking to paying private school fees if their children are deprived of the chance of getting into the comprehensive they have moved heaven and earth to live in the catchment area for, never mind grammar schools.

I have heard of it, Jess. It is something of a sore point up here that the same amount of funding is not being put into improving educational attainment for disadvantaged children in the North of England as it is in London, and before anyone shouts me down, I don't want to raise the North South divide debate anymore than anyone does. I am merely trying to get across that not all parts of the country have the same mountains to climb in terms of improving standards as others.

Okay, bags. Glad to clear it up. Speaking as a parent, grandparent and an ex-teacher! Have realised it wasn't clear.

Greyduster, I taught in inner city comprehensives, and my children went to comps with a mix of immigrants, Italian, Irish, West Indian, Indian, Pakistani, Chinese, Vietnamese, some of whom they are still in contact with.
My granddaughter went to a different comp with a mix of nationalities in the North.
All of the schools I know of have/had the reasonable ethos of everybody being important and working together to help each other.

The level playing field will never be there so long as there are grammar schools and private schools.
Already there are articles in the papers saying that middleclass parents whose children do not pass to get to grammar school will look to fee paying schools. More division even before May's ideas have really been announced, and just because someone going into No. 10 didn't have the nous to keep the paperwork covered. Anyone think it was done on purpose?

Greyduster you write of "inner city areas with large immigrant populations, some of whom, even in their early teens, have never been to school. They have very little or no English and are not educationally socialised."
In my experience many immigrant families are totally committed to their children's education. They work hard and are aspirational, their children are well disciplined and although they may have language difficulties they work hard to overcome them.Of course there are exceptions but to lump them all together as you have done is a bit like saying "all working class kids are thick" It isn't true and it is prejudiced.

Grandmamoira, grammar schools would only have solved the problem of your children's schools for those chosen to go the grammar schools. What would have happened had your children failed the 11+?

Children might be superbright but the 11+ is just a snapshot of part of one day and a child might be ill or have suffered a family trauma or any manner of things on that day. I cannot see how a couple of hours can accurately reflect the abilities of a child and it shouldn't be allowed to determine the rest of their education.

Greyduster you obviously have not heard about the fantastic improvements in attainment being achieved by comprehensive schools across London.
www.theguardian.com/education/2015/sep/30/london-schools-success-gradual-improvements-not-policies-lse-ifs-report
It's just a long slog raising attainment in schools with disadvantaged pupils. Recruiting good teachers, coaching and training the others to make them better. You don't need inspirational leaders, just ones who are prepared to keep on pushing things forward year after year.

Very good post Greyduster.

When i said mild learning disabilities I did not mean dyslexia, I meant mostly behavioural difficulties. The teachers said the reason they did not have streaming was because if they did, those in the bottom stream would band together and terrorise the school. This now sounds ridiculous but it is true.

Thank you for the confirmation, dj. I wasn't arguing about whether mistakes were made, only asking who was calling them mistakes because that wasn't clear to me at first. So you don't need to be defensive.

It must be obvious to most people that there is nothing wrong with comprehensive schools when they have inspirational leadership and motivated teaching staff, working with children in a disciplined environment. Unfortunately, these schools so often only exist in the leafier suburbs of our large cities, where middle class aspirational parents work to promote the school's ethos. At the other end of the scale, you have inner city areas with large immigrant populations, some of whom, even in their early teens, have never been to school. They have very little or no English and are not educationally socialised. These schools struggle to recruit decent teachers and when they can recruit them, they struggle to keep them in the face of constant disruptive behaviour which makes teaching a nightmare and no-one is working to promote any kind of ethos. Parents are very often unable or unwilling to get involved to make things better. Faced with such problems, how can you ever have a level playing field in education. There are partnerships which are striving to improve the lot of these schools, but like the mills of God, they grind exceeding slow.

The latest information is that 30 Tory MPs are going to vote against grammar schools, so it looks like it's not going to get off the ground.

Nicky Morgan brought in a white paper in the spring to turn all schools into academies. Mistake.
Gove got rid of course work and allowed more free schools to be set up, some of which have already been closed. Mistake.
I think you will find that the teachers unions think they were mistakes, not just me.

Arguably not arguable. We don't half need an edit button on Gransnet.

I went to a Grammar school in 1966 and so I feel I should think they are a good thing. However, it very much depends on the alternative. In those days, our local Secondary Modern was a good school, providing an excellent all-round education - more vocational than academic, but fine for those who it suited e.g. my brother. I am worried that with the current Government obsession with exam results, selection at age 11 will mean even more 'teaching to the exam' than there is at present. The 11 plus, as I remember it, was very much an IQ test. I had that kind of brain; my brother doesn't. That shouldn't be allowed to mean that I am more intelligent than him. I'm not, far from it. Arguable, he is a far more useful person than me, being a mechanic. I can write good essays and know a lot about such things as philosophy, but that isn't very useful to me, or anyone else!
Another assumption is that Grammar schools are full of well-behaved studious young people. Well, mine certainly wasn't. What is was full of was students who thought they were better than those who went to the school down the hill.
It's going to be interesting to see how this develops.

Oh, wait! I think I might have got it. Are you talking about what you regard as their mistakes rather than what they have called their mistakes?

Now Gove and Morgan disagree with May, because they say she will undo their mistakes over the last few years.

Could you explain what you mean by this, dj? I'm thinking that undoing mistakes wouldn't automatically be a bad thing and that they might even want TM's reforms to undo mistakes.