Reintroduction of Secondary modern schools for majority of children.

Very tongue in cheek Jen

My first view of who May actually is does not lead me to think she would listen to anyone who did not agree with her. This may be harsh so I am prepared to moderate my views if she becomes less dictatorial but we shall see.

I totally agree with your summary Beammeup.

The reason for the expansion of the Grammar School is more Aspirational than Educational. Many voters want what they perceive to be the best for their children and they see that in the Selective or Private system. Many people do not like it, but it is a vote winner.

Do you think May will take notice of the experts?

www.theguardian.com/education/2016/sep/23/theresa-mays-grammar-school-claims-disproved-by-new-study

www.independent.co.uk/voices/grammar-schools-theresa-may-private-schools-selection-a7314631.html

Did you read this link as well, Gracesgran?
Grammar schools are a good idea as they will kill off private schools.
I think It's possibly tongue in cheek as it's written by Rosie Millard.

If Theresa May can think of spending lots of money on building grammar schools, why can she not just put that money into the schools that are already there and improve the lot of all pupils?

It's the parents of bright pupils in the middle of rough council estates who might be won over by the promise of grammar schools. I can understand why. For them, it's an escape route from a school which might do very well with deprived children, but not have the time/resources/skills to deal with the most able.

But they don't send them to no go areas in the middle of rough council estates. Not many grammar schools there, Suedonim.

vice chancellor rubbishes Theresa May's plan for universities to open local schools

... Ms May has said that universities in England will be asked to establish new schools or to sponsor “an existing underperforming” one if they want to charge higher fees. She included the proposal in a previous speech on social mobility and education, in which she set out her goal of opening new grammar schools.

In the interview Vice chancellor Louise Richard said:
... “There are many wonderful teachers and head teachers throughout the country and I think it’s frankly insulting to them to suggest that a university can come in and do what they are working very hard to do and in many cases doing it exceptionally well.”

I tutored a boy, who had moved from Kent. He's bright, but didn't settle that well to school work at primary school. His parents employed tutors and he did pass the 11+ and went to a grammar school. However, he still didn't do that well at school.

After two years his family moved to a comprehensive area and he went to a school which hasn't always had a very good reputation. He was put into top sets for most subjects, except French, which is why I was employed. After two years of French at a grammar school, he was behind the level I would expect of a pupil of his ability.

He's now in the Sixth Form doing A levels. He's settled really well and is hoping to apply to Cambridge next year. Grammar schools obviously don't suit everybody, even the brightest.

think not thin (sticky keyboard - my excuse anyway).

The Chelmsford grammar schools have now imposed a distance restriction (12.5 miles I thin), because there were so many children commuting out of London, which meant it was even harder for Essex children to gain places.

People also send their children miles to go to grammar schools. I know folk in London whose children commute to grammar schools in Kent. Apparently, that's not uncommon and it leaves local children less able to gain a place.

The better off folk do that even with good schools over the entire age range. Dd moved to a village because of the schools
They paid a lot more for an inferior house just to get the boys into the schools. If you were less well off you wouldn't stand a chance.

According to Melissa Benn in School Wars, there was an area of Nottinghaam where only 1.5% of the distrct's entire school population went to grammar school; in neighbouring middle-class suburbs, 60% did.
10% in Gateshead and Sunderland.
40% in Westmorland.
It's obvious that if you were from a poor area you had less opportunity. Theresa May can only get over that by siting them in the middle of no go areas. Can anyone see her doing that?

Wouldn't have thought so as those children aren't necessarily the brightest - just taught to pass the exam.
I am sure some bright poorer children get through. I live in Sussex, no grammer schools around where we live. Lancing College not far though.

(Apologies for bad grammar!)

So its still out of the reach of poorer kids who don't have access to coaching. Private education on the cheap. What the eduction like in the comprehensives? Do they suffer for loosing la creme de la creme?

Most of the children going to grammar school in Kent are from middle class families. Their parents pay to have them tutored for the exam. Working class children's parents can't necessarily afford to have them tutored.

Norfolk doesn't have grammar schools (it never had many), so I wonder what the education is like in present day comprehensives which have the top creamed off to grammars? Are kids in Kent considered failures if they fail the 11+?

I think (hope) that things are so different these days that if grammar schools are brought back the not-grammar schools will be able to give just as good an education. After all in 'our day' (in Norfolk anyway) only 10% - 15% of children passed the 11+, it wasn't a standard level which had to be achieved but a competition for the places available which took no regard of the number of children applying; there was a considerable bias in favour of boys and the education in the sec mod (mine anyway) was to give a good general knowledge and an education aimed at getting a job. This influenced the level of teaching and the jobs we were aimed to fill.

As a girl It was not considered worthwhile teaching me woodwork, maths or science as I would never need them. Domestic science and business arithmetic and human physiology were enough. After all I would get a job in an office until I married and had babies and left work to be a good little housewife. Times have changed.

Now 50% go on to university. Most of this 50% must come from the not-grammars. They can't/won't be like the old sec mods. Can they?

The 11+ and grammar schools did work for a few years, because they provided a few places for children, whose parents would never have been able to afford a grammar school education. However, there was a lack of consistency. Some areas had more places than others, so it was never fair. More importantly, the 1944 Education was formulated in the context of a pre-war society. A minority went on to have white collar jobs and it was only considered necessary to provide those few with a proper secondary education. The majority of people worked in manual jobs and academic learning wasn't considered relevant. With hindsight, this was a huge mistake, because countries such as Germany were providing quality vocational training and apprenticeships.

After WW2, there was a huge increase in white collar jobs and even manual work became more technical. Socially aspirational parents wanted their children to work towards less 'dirty' jobs and it was realised that secondary moderns just weren't providing the opportunities (although some secondary moderns were better then others). During the 1950s, some of the most vocal supporters of comprehensive education were in the shire counties, such as Leicestershire, because there weren't enough grammar school places for the children of the upwardly mobile parents.

Fast forward to the current day...our economy needs more skilled workers at every level. Anna Vignoles, a professor of education at Cambridge who has done a huge amount of research on social mobility and education, says that we have enough 'highly educated' people to do the top jobs. She claims that what the country needs to do is concentrate on those in the middle of the ability range and upskill them for the demands of the modern world. The return of grammar schools won't do that.

I'm at a loss to understand why Theresa May thinks grammar schools are a good idea.

PS. My own children were the first in my family to go to comprehensive schools. I was a little nervous at first, but I honestly think they had a better education than I or my parents had. Both have gone to good universities. My daughter found a good job after graduating and is more well-balanced than I was at her age. My son is just starting his degree and I'm reasonably confident he'll be OK. They're both bright, but I don't think they have suffered in any way from not going to grammar schools.

My father passed the 11+ but couldn't go to grammar school as his mother couldn't afford the uniform. His father died when he was nine, and there were four other children.

Rab Butler actually wrote about how important it was ' to ensure that a stigma of inferiority did not attach itself to those secondary institutions ..which lacked the facilities and academic prestige of the grammar schools'.

Grammar schools had three times as much money spent on them, the best teachers, the best facilities, offered public exams and a secure route into higher education.

The NFER came out against selection in 1957, saying that the 11+ contained serious errors, because of the number of children who were achieving academically in some of the secondary moderns. Even Rhodes Boyson said that the 11+ made serious mistakes.

So why go back to selection, if it didn't work properly back then?

My grandmother was a headmistress at a village 4-14 school.
She retired in 1945 as she had cancer, and my parents were going to get married, so she could go and live with them instead of in the schoolhouse.

Any of you who have been to Beamish, it was smaller than the school there.
According to my mother, there were 70+ pupils with my grandmother and one pupil teacher to teach the whole age range. The pupil teacher was one of the brighter girls who had left the school and wanted to learn how to be a teacher. She was completely untrained. Never met my grandmother, so I never learned from her what it was like, but it sounds very unlike a comprehensive school, more like advanced babysitting, with all pupils sitting in rows in agegroups, working on slates, head walking up and down the rows.

I think we often forget about the narrowness of the offering at many Grammar Schools and the same could be said when children were educated to in the 4 to 14 parish schools. Many Secondary Moderns has inspiring heads but were working with a limited budget.

Some one said earlier, but it bears repeating, that we no longer need those just educated in so called vocational, technical or academic subjects as the skills needed in our modern world cannot be narrowed in this way. Making choices at, say, 14 should be about choices - as many as possible and a fluid as possible.

Thank you, dd. Very interesting post. I'm just in for a cuppa and a dose of gransnet after some garden bonfiring and your post was a good read.