Reintroduction of Secondary modern schools for majority of children.

I worked in primary schools in a major city years ago and they did the 11+. I understood that the pass grades were directly linked to the number of places available in the grammar schools in the area. Once the local grammar schools were full, all other children were deemed to have failed. Imagine any LEA (as they were called then)telling parents,'Your child has passed, but we don't have a grammar school place for them.'? No, they were told they had failed.

So a failing child may have passed in a neighbouring LEA with more/bigger grammar schools. Many children were labelled a failure at that young age and some never really got their confidence back. They went through life feeling a failure and it was wrong then and it will be wrong again.

I feel very stongly that we place too much emphasis in this country on the ability to pass exams and those who can't being made to feel like failed human beings.

It was, of course, well known that the pass mark for girls was higher than that for boys, otherwise there would have been more girls than boys in the grammar school - and that would never do!

In Essex, there are four highly selective grammar schools. The competition for them is fierce. Next door is the unitary authority of Southend, which also has grammar schools, but it is a much smaller authority and so the demand is lower. Essex parents enter their offspring for the 11+ for both Essex and Southend.

The result is that schools in the South East of Essex have their most able pupils 'creamed off', while Southend parents, whose offspring fail the 11+, send them to Essex comprehensives. The remaining Southend secondary moderns really struggle and the Essex comprehensives in that area have a disproportionate number of 'average' pupils. It's crazy! I understand the same sort of issue arises in Buckinghamshire and Milton Keynes. The only true comprehensives are where grammar schools don't skew the intake.

I feel that there is possibly a case for different pathways at 14. By then, most children have a fair idea of their strengths. However, this already happens when pupils choose their options for GCSE and a big comprehensive should be able to offer a range of core, vocational and traditional academic subjects.

The trouble is, Badenkate, that girls tend to mature more early than boys, so comparing girls and boys at 11 is nonsense anyway.

Not arguing at all daphnedill. Another 'problem' from back when I and DH went to grammar school, both in rural areas, is that the pass rate in both areas where we lived was around 20% of those taking the 11+ whereas in many urban areas it was well below 10%.

Yes badenkate the inequity between boys and girls was common - happened in many boroughs where there were boys and girls grammars, with more places in the boys.
Daphnedill girls may be more socially mature but they are not better able to perform on 11+ type tests as a result.
My DH went to a boys grammar in Walsall, just at the time the comprehensives were being established. So a very small "cream off". He had to travel on his own on 2 buses and was bullied and lonely in the grammar school. Very young in his year did not help. He excelled academically (hard to keep those IQ points down) but left with a sense of inferiority - the poor boy who could not fit in with other males. His sisters went to the not very brilliant comps, did much less well academically but they are all bright, confident and motivated and have had excellent careers.
Comprehensives were much less good then. A least 2 of the 3 sisters would have gone to good universities if they had been in today's comprehensive system.
Seems to me that Gove and Morgan have made a complete mess of the English secondary education system with their piecemeal introduction of various flavours of academies (some part of big chains, some self-run, some small federations). Plus Free schools that were Gove's answer to improving standards. (I remember distinctly the phone conversation with the local Tory conversation - free schools are going to raise standards. This was the only policy in the manifesto in 2010.) With a little help from Blair who introduced academies (mark 1 - the kind with a rich sponsor who chipped in lots of money to build a new school) in the first place.
There were also moves under Blair to give schools "more freedom" - including more freedom over admissions.
In the last 6 years LEAs have been more or less dismantled and nobody is co-ordinating all the secondaries in English boroughs. They all set their own admissions policies and there is no ultimate democratic control or even influence over them.
PM May now talks of giving all schools the right to apply to be selective. Cue even more chaos. We will probably see areas (particularly dense urban areas) where there are several selective schools within travelling distance. Each of them will be running their own entrance exams and competing for the brightest children. Many more children will be coached and may end up at 10, being pushed to do multiple 11+ exams. Madness.

Interesting comments about the different pass marks between girls and boys. I must admit I'd never thought about it. When I took the 11+, there was an equal number of places for boys and girls at single sex schools, but I don't know what the pass mark was. I know that in Year 7, I was very careful how I set boys and girls and tried to avoid creating boy-heavy bottom sets. In languages, girls generally did better at that stage, but the boys caught up later.

I agree wholeheartedly with your last paragraph, Jess. I sometimes despair when I read Mumsnet threads about the numerous scholarship exams parents make their offspring do...and it will just get worse. I can think of at least three schools which will probably become totally selective, if this goes ahead. All are voluntary aided former grammar schools, which have semi-selective admissions policies now. They got round the ban on selection by becoming 'faith' schools. One gives preference to Christians and Jews, although it's situated in an area with a large Muslim minority.

As I understand it the pass mark for girls was raised above that of boys during the first few years of the 11+ - the powers-that-be were knocked sideways by the fact that so many more girls than boys were passing. Presumably they would not get away with that now. It just demonstrates what a nonsense it is as a way of predicting future performance and educational needs.

What really gets my goat about the latest proposals is that they are being "spun" so dishonestly. If the Tories like grammars then they should just say so and stop pretending that it is a way of getting poorer bright children a better education. We all know that parents with money will get coaching for their children, where an equally bright child from a poor background will not have this advantage.

Also we will be in a situation where primary schools are not only teaching to the SATs rather than educating their pupils, but also training them in 11+ exam techniques and tying their learning down to whatever they are likely to encounter in the exam.

The statistics being bandied about are interesting, apparently 65% of people want to see Grammar schools brought back, but then consider that only 20% of children will be selected for these schools. That leaves 80% who will be considered to have failed. It doesn't need a mathematical genius to realise that there will be a substantial number of people who will be very upset about this. Who knows Theresa May might be digging the Tories grave?

I feel very strongly that grammar schools are a good idea. I had a good education at a grammar school. My children got band 1 (equivalent to passing 11+) in their London reading test, and had to go to a comprehensive with mixed ability classes, where they repeated what they had learnt at primary school and were taught to the level of the lowest in the class - those with mild learning disabilities or newly arrived in the UK and not speaking much English. I cannot understand why anyone would think comprehensives are a good idea, they are terrible. They may be good in some areas, but definitely not in all. Streaming is essential to get the best from children.

We live in a county that has pockets of grammar schools. Some of the feeder primaries are well known for coaching for the eleven plus. Parents will travel quite large distances to get their children into these and these schools select the children they think will succeed. So a sort of selection at age 5!
Also there are quite a few people offering private coaching focused on passing 11 plus so again, that knocks on the head the idea that reintroducing grammar schools will give equal opportunity to all regardless of financial considerations,

Streaming is very different from selection GrandmaMoira. Children are streamed in good comprehensives but can move up and down according to their standard of work/ability but selection means one set of children are educated separately with no means of movement. As there is no standard mark for passing the 11+, the mark is dependent on how many children are sitting, how many places are available, and gender statistics. It is impossible to say your children would have gone to a grammar school, they might well have just missed out and finished up in a secondary modern.

@trisher

I suspect some of the 65% are people without children, so won't be affected.

@grandmamoira

I went to a direct grant grammar school and then to a Russell Group uni, as did both my children, who went to a comprehensive. Both of them studied almost identical subjects at GCSE as I did at O level. All of us did history A level and achieved the top grade, so going to a comprehensive didn't hold them back at all...and I can honestly say they were happier at school than I was.

There aren't many secondary schools now which have mixed ability teaching for academic subjects. Finland, which is always towards the top in international league tables, has comprehensive schools and mixed ability teaching until the age of 15.

The pass marks had to be set for the number of places available so hard lines for those born in a boom year. I understand that the quota of girls was kept down too LG as we would not need so many in the work force so why educate them. I am never too sure that historical (ours) views are relevant but it may give us some insight into the reality of they system as it was then.

We all got our exam results but were subsequently told (well our parents were) that they had set the bar too low and offered too many places. They decided to interview us. I was asked which school I would go to if I didn't go to the Grammar School. As an RAF brat I suppose it was not an unreasonable question but they would have been better asking my parents - I didn't really know. I said that, as my brother was a border (too many moves) I supposed that is what would happen. My parents had no such intention so, having talked myself out of a place at the GS I started at the Secondary Modern - I loved it! Top set and usually at the top I got a lot of confidence but a year and a term later we were posted and I moved to a bi-lateral school - one of May's suggestions. Bi-lateral schools are those which take some people on a selective basis and some not. This one really just took all those children of the forces there.

Again I moved up to the top (Grammar this time) sets in English and Maths (not French - we hadn't studied it in a Grammar School way or I might just have been rubbish at it.) There were only 300 in the school and on a bad day (shooting in the nearby town where some families lived in hirings) we might only have 3 in the class. I found the move difficult but thrived academically so the school were intending to put me in for some 'O' levels early. My father would move again at the beginning of what is now year 10, so halfway through the two years seen then as the 'O' level years. As he was part of the team planning our evacuation he thought it would be better for me to return to England and board. The school put me in for the 13+ and, on the basis of that I got into a very academic Direct Grant Grammar School. Success you would think ... but I hated it. There was no national curriculum then and everything seemed different. The school had 1000 pupils and I thought I would get lost and I missed my parents.

The conclusion I came to is that chaotic lives are not always because of bad parents and I truly believe that if I had stayed at the Secondary Modern I would have done at least as well. I also became a great fan of setting and extra-curricular (gifted and talented) work in the subjects people excel in.

I would say we now live in very different times. I believe that very little social mobility was caused by the Grammar Schools and much caused because access to entry level jobs grew hugely and there was easy access to relevant life-time learning. Some more children from poorer homes did go to University but it does not compare to the numbers going from such home now under the current system.

Tory MPs aren't in the majority who want grammar schools brought back. It's thought that even Gove, Osborne and Cameron will join the rebels on this one.
If this is what May wants, she's obviously announced it too soon in her premiership.
"She declined to say how many grammar schools she would like and ducked a question on whether the government would offer evidence from academics or Whitehall officials showing the policy would improve educational attainment for all."

That means there is no evidence of improvement. In fact all the research I've read on it shows the opposite, just like it was when we were at school.
I can't believe the number of people who say it benefited me and my children.
So that makes it a good idea, does it?
What about the ones who did not benefit from it?
Anyway, you are talking about in the 50s and 60s. The world has moved on since then. Theresa May said in her speech that she wanted a more equal society, one that worked for all. All those that are clever enough to go to grammar schools, obviously.

fullfact.org/education/grammar-schools-and-social-mobility-whats-evidence/

www.ifs.org.uk/docs/Grammar_Schools2013.pdf#page=25

This is an interesting link within that fullfact link.

Having gone to a good Grammar School myself I have always been in favour of them. However I have just come home after going to our school's centenary party. 50 years ago when the school became both co ed and comprehensive it went right down hill, exam results were poor, furniture was damaged and the children were scruffy. What a change today! Good results, all sorts of interesting things going on in the school and the pupils who had volunteered to help were a joy, polite and interested to talk to a lot of old ladies. Rather than a return to Grammar Schools and the sort of Z class Secondary Modern that DH attended we need more good Comprehensives offering stimulating and wide ranging education.

Yes Comprehensives are nothing at all like the Secondary Moderns of the 1950s and early 60s.
Grammar schools used to be a kind of pre-selection for those who went on to higher education and in particular. university. In my grammar the top two streams were expected to go to university and the other two into teacher training or maybe office work.
Secondary moderns provided an education suitable for those going on to work in shops and factories. There would not have been anyone going directly from a secondary modern to university because they did not have sixth forms. (they did not even go through to "school cert" I think, but finished at 15.)
These days nearly half of all school leavers go to university. So the grammars will become a selection at 11 for those who will go to top universities I guess. A very different world to the one where Teresa May grew up.
Does anyone think this will appeal to a wide variety of younger voters or will it only appeal to people like her who went to grammars themselves and have not bothered to find out what goes on these days in comprehensives?

Initially they didn't take any exams JessM but, if my memory serves me right those who started in 1957 could go on to take 'O' levels but the number was often limited. They could then transfer to the Grammar School sixth form if they had the relevant subjects but I do wonder how many did that.

They system was originally intended to by tripartite but very few of the technical schools were ever set up.

I have just found a quote that lines up with my experience.

The 'baby boomer' generation was particularly affected during the period 1957 to 1970 because grammar-school places had not been sufficiently increased to accommodate the large bulge in student numbers which entered secondary schools during this period. As a result, cut-off standards on the Eleven Plus Examination for entry into grammar schools rose and many students who would, in earlier years, have been streamed into grammar schools were instead sent to secondary modern schools.

The system was unsuccessful for far more of the students that it was ever successful for and many of those who think it a good idea have little knowledge of today's schools. Yes, put money into gifted and talented and also into technical choices (with properly equivalent qualifications) but just offering a few a better education was bad then and is bad now.

I went to a girls' secondary modern school in Romford - a fairly working class area of outer London. I count myself as fortunate that our headmistress, who was Swedish, had some interesting and innovative ways of giving all pupils a chance to be creative, even though we had limited opportunities to succeed academically.

Each year there was a week-long arts festival/competition, which included solo singing, choirs, solo verse speaking, verse speaking choirs, dance, musical instruments, etc. etc. Professional adjudicators were brought in, and it was a most wonderful experience which everybody looked forward to and enjoyed. There were many after-school clubs, junior and senior choirs and a French choir - and we produced a school magazine (and this was in the early 60's). We also put on very polished drama and musical productions.

Despite my very happy memories of this school (we moved when I was 13 so I went to another - less enjoyable - school), I will never forget how much of a failure I felt when I did not pass the 11+. This was not helped by the school's limited curriculum which clearly sent a message that we were not really expected to be much more than shorthand typists, clerks or shop assistants. I would not wish this very real feeling of inferiority and this closing down of aspiration and choice to be placed on any 11 year old.

Theresa May has said she is so grateful that she went to a grammar school, and that is the reason she wishes to encourage more of them to be opened. This seems to indicate a very self-centred way of looking at things. As a vicar's daughter, it is likely she came from a fairly conventional, reasonably comfortable and well educated household. No doubt that type of "middle class" background was prevalent in her grammar school - research has shown it was in most grammar schools. To cite her own experience as a reason for bringing back a system that many learned people feel was detrimental to the vast majority of children seems to me to be putting her own misty-eyed emotions above research findings.

My experience was very similar to Gracegran and for the same reasons. Moves linked to my father's job seemed endless. I was evidently a mark or so out of passing the ll+ despite having only just arrived at the school and having been (I now know) at a dreadful primary school for the previous year. Dad found the best sec mod via his work colleagues and I had a long journey to get there every day. I was another top of the top set group. The headteacher was a visionary, we worked towards 5 O levels, had house groups, sports/prize days, became involved in productions of plays and Gilbert and Sullivan and were taken to see Shakespeare, the ballet and music. Sadly , we moved again..... It's good to see so many grans on here who support a good comprehensive education as far preferable to the divisive 11 plus.

There was certainly a stigma attached to secondary modern education, although I enjoyed mine and did well there - always in the top stream with good marks for everything except maths, where I was consistently bottom of the class. This, I am convinced, failed me at 11+. My mother was always telling me that there was nothing for me but work in a factory or a counter in Woolworths (for some reason, Woolworths seemed to be the benchmark for boring dead end jobs). I left school and went to the newly opened commercial college and left there with a fistful of good RSA qualifications. A friend went to the same college a became a qualified dietician. Another went on to be a laboratory technician. There were boys from our school doing full time and day release technology subjects and some of them went on to have exceptionally good managerial careers in industry. My cousin, from the same school, became an electronics engineer, worked with the Antarctic Survey Team and became a college lecturer. A secondary modern education did not condemn you to a life of dead end drudgery. There were opportunities for those who wanted to pursue them. I had friends who went to grammar school whose subsequent careers were not that much different to mine. I didn't pull up any trees, but I always had good jobs and opportunities to advance, some of which I took and some I didn't but that was personal choice. I would like to see better comprehensives so that no-one has to struggle to get their children into a good school but it won't happen until we have better discipline, better leadership, a teaching profession that believes itself valued and parents who value the education system and have aspiration for their children.

I went to one of the earliest Comprehensives in 1958. I passed the 11 plus after an interview and was put in the lower end of the grammar stream.

I loved it because you could be in a high set for some subjects and a lower set for others so there was no stress about keeping up. At 14 I did a two year Secretarial Course alongside O Levels and an exam called the UEI and was able to earn a good wage at 16. I did a degree years later as a mature student.

There seems to be a great many positive comments about setting and I can only agree. I would add that after 14 more individually appropriate classes should be available. That is more higher level work in the subject a student is good at and more available so called technical education. We have very few who learn coding by comparison to some countries for instance.

Greyduster talks about RSA, etc., and Further Education Colleges have offered wonderful opportunities to many but they are now having huge cuts and a large re-organisation. This is an area where money can be spent as well as offering stretch subjects (hate calling them that but can't think of another term) in the areas students are exceptional. Surely you should be able to offer, in one school, Further Maths, German and a more technical Engineering subject.

The other thing I would look for is ensuring that we offer proper 'apprenticeships' Vets, doctors and architects basically do apprenticeships and we do not expect them to stop learning at 19 after and additional year. We need to enable people to become qualified to a level and able to earn but always able to go on further.