Reintroduction of Secondary modern schools for majority of children.

For those that disagree with me about Grammar schools because they had a difference experience of comprehensives, I still insist that Grammar schools would give bright children a chance of an education at an appropriate level for them which many comprehensives do not. You can tell me about good comprehensives where children go on to University but they are not all like that and it is still true that my children had a bad education where around 25% passed GCSE at A-C and around 10% passed A level. If we can't get all comprehensives to offer a good education to brighter kids, we need grammar schools.

GrandmaMoira, the people who express different views to you about grammar/secondary modern schools aren't simply doing so because "they had a different experience of comprehensives ....etc" Most people here are anxious not to stigmatise 80% of children at 11 because they didn't pass the 11+. There is a consensus here that all children deserve the best education the country can provide for them. I'm sorry to read that your own children had a poor experience of comprehensive education but the answer isn't to reintroduce selective education.

I was in the same position as Greyduster and did very nicely thanks to an excellent CofFE where I studied the RSA secretarial diploma. I was amazed to get a distinction in the book keeping element because I'd always found maths difficult. Sadly, those good Diploma courses seem to be a thing of the past. As GG says, the cuts are alive and well in higher education.

Grandmamoira, do you not think that money should be spent on bringing all schools up to standard, and not merely concentrated on a few schools that can only be accessed by 20% of children?

It's surely in everyone's interest for all children to receive the education that suits them and not just the chosen few.

I live in Scotland where there are no grammar schools at all and the system in general seems to be working here, even though it naturally has its hiccups.

Can anyone find any evidence except anecdotal that grammar schools work, because I cannot.

Goodness me you do sound cross GrandmaMoira and I am not sure why.

As far as I can see no one disagreed with you. Only one person addressed you directly and that was to point out that streaming and selection are not the same thing and streaming happens in comprehensives. Most people have been doing exactly what you did and just put forward their own point of view.

However, I will address your points. You talk about your children going to a comprehensive which you were obviously not pleased with but I wonder when that was. My children started at comprehensives in the 1980s and they had already improved. Many in the 70s had issues - because they were moving from being underfunded Secondary Moderns. Turning that around so that everyone got a better education did take some time but, if you are looking back at the 70s or 80s you will be talking about almost 50 years ago and, I would think at the very least, 30 years ago.

My twin DGCs left their comprehensive's last year having both done extremely well and are now successfully going into the second year of their degrees. The younger one has also done very well and will start her degree in September. This is what Comprehensive's are doing now and that is what could be destroyed. The great thing is that all the pupils in that school have, as far as I am aware, achieved well whatever their own abilities.

I can understand the frustration if, all that time ago, your children did not get what you had hoped for them. If they had started at my daughter's school in the early 80s they may have been in a class with her. You talk about them being in a mixture "with mild learning disabilities" I am afraid they would quite possibly have had to "mix" with my DD who is not mildly disabled by dyslexia but severely so. Where would you have suggested she should have gone to school? She is now a teacher with a 2:1 degree and currently studying her masters. She is one of the most intelligent and caring people I know.

I can only see utter selfishness and lack of current knowledge in your post but would not have dreamt of saying so if you had not come back so crossly. Who is to say that, in a year or an area, where a high number of children took the 11+ by comparison to the places available your offspring might not have failed. It was never a fair system.

Things are not anecdotal when thousands or millions of people say the same thing.

Another wonderful Obieism - anyone know what it means?

Excellent post, Gracesgran.
Theresa May's idea of bringing back grammar schools is based on her own experience, not on any evidence from experts in education.
The same went for Gove's rearrangement of the syllabus, and free schools, and Nicky Morgan's ideas.

Now Gove and Morgan disagree with May, because they say she will undo their mistakes over the last few years.
All teachers want is to be left alone for a few years to get on with their jobs, but they are not allowed to. No wonder many of them want to retire or leave early. No wonder education is a mess.

Yes I am cross, it is an issue with me that my children were denied any opportunity for a good education in the 80s and 90s. Local comprehensives were quite good in the 60s into the 70s and awful in the 80s and 90s and got worse when friends with younger children went there. Grammar schools would have solved this. I don't know whether local comprehensives are any better now but I can only go by the fact that I had a good education at a grammar school and my children had a bad education at a comprehensive. My granddaughter is viewing secondary schools now and her option is Academies which seem better than the comprehensives in my borough.

I apologise if I sound unreasonable on this issue. I usually try to be moderate and non argumentative. I think people outside inner London had very different experiences of comprehensives. This is one of the few things I have very strong views on.

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.

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?

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Very good post Greyduster.

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.

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 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.

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?

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.

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.