Reintroduction of Secondary modern schools for majority of children.

Going to be even more soon, when they bring in the new benefit cap. There will be no trouble identifying lots soon. They will be the ones who are on the streets or in bed and breakfasts as they have lost their homes.

Struggling to find a good school for their children - I think this is the group she referred to in her doorstep speech when she became PM.
FSM is probably as good a proxy as any for being on a low income. Of course there are lots of families struggling on just above that level, many of them as a consequence of Osborne's policies.

She seems to be tying herself up in knots there.
She says about identifying those who have free school meals, but doesn't say what they do with them once identified. Now she wants to identify those who are not on free school meals but still struggling.
Struggling to do what?
Poor children do not necessarily benefit from being removed from their friends and put into a different environment.

Are you as baffled by this as I am?

Grammar schools will not be in every town, says Theresa May

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-37533367

Nfk, reminds me of when we moved down to Oulton Broad in the seventies. It was in the dark and we asked this man if we were there yet. He told us we were on the right road. We had to get to a wide road and when it narrowed again we would be there. We were expecting a dual carriageway, but it was actually that that bit of the single carriageway did widen! We missed it, and had to turn round and go back.

Hey DJ - here in Norfolk in the last few years, we too got peanuts for transport! Wonderful! First time in ages we've had anything at all, and we're actually building proper roads! (Mind you, the second one around the north of Norwich doesn't go all the way. May get to complete it in the next tranche of money in twenty years time!)

Money is sticky stuff. It mostly gets stuck around London and the Home Counties.

Looking at the per capita spend is interesting when you compare them with the £37,000 for Eton. The per capita amount for Cambridgeshire is £3,718.

I'm not sure how the formula works. I expect it's because Surrey is seen as not having high social needs. Cambridgeshire is also towards the bottom of the list. I know London's high spend is often defended, because salaries are higher.

Surrey is in the lower quarter when it comes to per capita spend per pupil.

This can only be a vanity project as educationalist are almost without exception opposed to thus as unworkable and unfair.

School spending per capita in the North East is roughly in line with the rest of the country, apart from London.

The figures are here. I can't link directly, because it's a spreadsheet, but it's Table 8.

Do a search for Main tables: SR48/2015 - Gov.uk

Both Cambridgeshire and Essex, both of which I know well, receive less per capita than anywhere in the North East.

Same with transport. Khan asking for more money for London Transport, and in the North East we get peanuts.

Megabucks when compared to the rest of the country. I believe the programme was rolled out in Manchester, Birmingham & Liverpool but less funding I believe. Who says money doesn't make a difference ....

Good speech, particularly about grammar schools.

Now we just need the London challenge to roll out all over the country.
Did London schools get extra finance?

www.gov.uk/government/speeches/sir-michael-wilshaws-speech-at-the-london-councils-education-summit

Well worth a read to get one thinking.

Head of big academy chain came out as critical of the idea today.

The above type of schools are likely to be the first to be allowed to select by ability, if the proposal goes ahead.

There are already schools with a semi-selective admissions code, where a certain percentage is admitted because the pupils have a talent in music or languages (for example). They are currently not allowed to use an ability test such as the 11+, although of course, pupils whose parents have arranged music or languages lessons before the age of 11 tend to be middle class and 'pushy'.

Such schools call themselves 'comprehensive', but they are nothing of the sort. They achieve high results, so there's a snowball effect. Pushy parents practically knife each other in the back (metaphorically) to gain places in these schools.

www.itv.com/news/westcountry/2016-09-29/fraud-investigation-underway-after-11-plus-exam-leaked/

Anyone live in Plymouth?

I don't think May is thinking of building grammar schools jen - just getting existing schools to apply for permission to have a selective entrance criterion and then give them a better budget.
Bet there are a bunch of civil servants in the D of E scratching their heads about how it will work.

In the school where I was governor we had an intake that were not in any way advantaged. We got the 5 a-cs including English and Maths from about 15% up to 40%. This took several years and needed a certain amount of staff turnover and good recruitment, along with demanding more from teachers. Then forced to become an Academy and plummeted nearly back to where we started.
It is pretty hard if your intake is nearly all from a poor council estate to get the kids through English and Maths. It is also hard to recruit good staff in unattractive areas. Sometimes it is hard to increase staff at all.

Yes, it does, but I wouldn't be happy to send my children to a Knowsley school, because they can't offer a full range of academic subjects.

I can't find the 2016 results for Halewood Academy, but in 2014 they were 24% for 5 GCSEs A*-C including Maths and English. In schools with a low ability intake, teachers just do not have the time or resources to stimulate the more able.

When you consider that A* -C is the O level equivalent, the idea that 37% passing 5 subjects from a poor comprehensive is considered bad is very strange.
It shows how well teachers are doing, in my opinion.

I agree with you absolutely, beammeupscottie. I also believe that the biggest problem in schools isn't segregation by ability but discipline (or rather, lack of). Very few people want their children to be in classes which are constantly disrupted. Michael Wilshaw isn't my favourite person, but by introducing super firm disciplne at Mossbourne, where he was head, the school has consistently produced excellent results with a number going to Oxbridge. I don't like the way he treated the staff, whom he ran into the ground, but it shows that it can be done.

Realistically, if an area has very low performing schools, it takes a huge push to improve them all. Knowsley, just outside Liverpool, is the worst performing area in the country. There are now no sixth forms in the area and pupils have to travel to a neighbouring authority.

One of my sisters went to a grammar school in the area before it became comprehensive. That school is still the best performing school in the authority. I would imagine parents go to great lengths to get their children into the school, but those who don't get in are then left with schools where fewer than 37% achieve five A*-Cs at GCSE.

In reality, there are some seriously deprived areas in the authority and curriculum planners have a problem. They can provide a core of maths, English, science and functional skills type courses, which some would say are appropriate to the pupils, but others would say patronise the most able. Each school probably has too few pupils to make more academic courses viable, which is what's already happened with their A level choices. Alternatively, the schools could run academic courses for all, which wouldn't be appropriate for the majority.

When my sister was at school, she studied mainly academic O levels and went on to do A levels, but she would no longer be able to do those subjects. It's a real dilemma for schools in areas such as Knowsley. Ideally, the schools would receive extra funding for their brightest pupils, but that's not going to happen, because most schools spend extra money on their least able pupils and the brightest find themselves in bigger classes with less teacher attention.