Reintroduction of Secondary modern schools for majority of children.

How demoralising for the schools that aren't designated as Grammar Schools. Presumably round one creams off a smaller number of the 'brightest', then what? ... an additional class in the second year creamed from the success of the remaining schools. Then the remaining schools work hard and do their best by a smaller number of children with less money to do it and again their most successful children are moved with the money that goes with them and this may repeat for one more year yet again widening the intake at th Grammar and narrowing it at those schools feeding these children in with the budget for the Grammar growing each year while diminishing at 'the other' schools. This sounds even more demoralising than it was first time round. Madness!

I seems a great deal of the growth of home schooling has come from Faith communities, mainly Muslim, with a suspected increase in unregistered schools. This does not seem to me to be what we usually think of as home schooling.

I've just read a VG article by Philip Collins in which he says this:

Besides, Mrs May’s advisers know all the objections to grammar schools. They know the cause of social mobility in the 1960s was the conversion of Britain, between the end of the First World War and the end of that decade, from an essentially blue-collar economy into a mostly white-collar one. Suddenly there was more room at the top. Grammar schools coincided with this change but did not cause it. At the height of their popularity, of the grammar school children who gained two A levels, less than 1 per cent came from the skilled working class.

Whole article here

It is interesting really. My GDs are in a grammar area, in a very prosperous town. The grammar schools take many children educated in independent prep schools and others who have been heavily coached for a number of years. The local secondary schools (church schools and an academy) do very well indeed with the children that they have and a significant proportion go on to university. The proportion of children on free school meals in the grammar schools is very low.
It seems to me to be more like private education on the cheap.

Yup Mamie - I know of one mum who withdrew her children from a local prep school, because they told her that the eldest was unlikely to pass the 11+ to get into a grammar across the county boundary.
The head of education in the OECD has criticised May's grammar school idea.
I'm inclined to think that if you want to decrease inequality of opportunity you should identify poor kids with high IQs early (in primary) and give them support and extra stimulation throughout their school careers. Rather than giving more money to grammars.

Going back to your earlier post NfkDumpling are you saying that children will be re-tested at 12,13 and 14 ? How can that possibly work? Children could be going backwards and forwards like yo-yo's (I may have got the wrong end of the stick)

Of course it won't work. It isn't a new idea and it never did work.

Grammar school places were never to do with marks but all to do with spaces.
I tried to move from the sec mod to the grammar school at 12 yrs and there was a whole hall full of us and it turned out that we were competing for 2 places!
Children are not going to go 'down' to the sec mod after a few yrs in grammar school, therefore unless they move away from the area there are no spaces.

The joy of the comprehensive is that you can move sets without a change of uniform and friends.

Absolutely Jess. I used to work close to an LA that has some of the best comprehensive schools in the country (and I am talking about the vast majority of schools, not just a few).. I do not think that any grammar school could have done any better for the children in those schools.
What is needed in education is a period of stability, sustained and focussed school improvement, support for recruitment and retention of staff, proper planning for new schools and sustained support for disadvantaged families.
What is not needed is privatisation by the back door, a system that changes every five minutes depending on the government's latest vanity project and the sustained rubbishing by politicians and the press of schools, teachers and LAs.
I am not holding my breath.

I have been saying for years that it was the jobs not the schools that made the difference. That is why so many, consigned to Secondary Moderns, also did very well, educating themselves either through job specific exams or through the excellent FE provision.

This is exactly what May should be looking at. Of course we need the brightest to get relevant education but that is going to be the academically brightest, technically brightest and vocationally brightest. This old and rather class ridden view that bright only equals academic could kill progress.

Please bear with me as I haven't been watching this thread before, and really mustn't start looking back on it now (jobs to do!).

But I just noticed a couple of recent posts re children being retested at 12 and 14, and I know this did happen in my area back in the day. I went to a large girls' grammar school serving a mainly rural area and with 6 forms per year. We were told we were randomly selected for each class, but we all knew that wasn't the case! One of them (T) was a smaller class just for those girls who came into the school from other areas or following the 12 and 14 plus. They were re-allocated from there later (after proper assessment, I suppose). I can't really imagine how it worked, but I do know two girls who joined the grammar at 12+ and opted to go back to the secondary modern, so yes, that happened too. Whether anybody went back against their will, I don't know.

'wrapped up to help poorer children' - I thought it was promoted as 'giving parents more choice' which doesn't make sense to me.

Actually after reading this, I am wondering if it is a purely political move to capture the UKIP vote?
www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/sep/16/nigel-farage-aide-says-ukip-supporters-have-flocked-to-tories

I read an article a few days ago that said that Farage must think his job is done now; first he gets us out of the EU, then he gets grammar schools back on the agenda.

Farage has just said something similar at the UKIP Party Conference. There seems to be talk of them placing themselves as a "libertarian" party - again to the right of the Conservatives - they seem to sum "libertarian" up as 'small government, low taxes'. That seems to me very like the Tea Party in the USA.

This suggests that selective education doesn't work anywhere in the world, so why should May expect it to work here?

theconversation.com/does-selective-schooling-work-anywhere-in-the-world-65252

Farage's former aide has just defected to the Conservatives and said the same thing.

Ms Phillips, who is now a member of the Conservative Party, said: "I'm extremely impressed by Mrs May's conviction when it comes to selective education.

"I am currently reassured by what she's saying about Brexit, and I'm also optimistic about Britain's future energy security because I know that she's willing to go ahead and say, 'Right, let's have exploratory drilling for shale gas.'

"I think those three key issues are in the UKIP 2015 manifesto. They're now actually being conducted in Parliament, which is excellent."

Didn't she know what was in the manifesto?

Oh Jen, you are asking for a rational politician

Sorry Gilliybob I was going by what *Eloethan head on Question Time that children would be tested at 11,12,13 and 14.

It's ridiculous!

Oops - forgot the second * and upset the system!

TMs speech when first becoming leader indicated that she recognised the life limiting chances that the poorer members of society have to contend with when aspiring to better themselves. I found myself nodding in agreement.

Fast forward over the summer holidays and one of the first indicators eminating from TMs new government is that she will look favourably on grammar schools.
Children with good academic ability must always be encouraged. However what we must not forget and it is in this area that I think we have been weak, is that there are other sorts of equally valuable strengths in individuals that contribute greatly to the society in which they live. Once again academic ability appears to be being valued above other abilities that favour a more vocational approach. This is a lesson we have never learned from countries like Germany where academic progress whilst valued is not rated more highly than those children who are gifted in other ways, making good engineers, carpenters, electricians.

In proposing that grammar schools be brought back, the weakness so far in this argument is that she has failed to recognise the enormous contribution that the non academic individual makes to the country. In accepting that the academic child should be better catered for, I feel that has to be balanced with the recognition that the non academic child deserves equal consideration. Schools that concentrate on more technical subjects that turn out future engineers, electricians, computer engineers etc

Silly statements like TM may look favourably on grammars, do not help her aspiring poor one jot. Looking at the strengths in the existing system and building on them whilst sweeping away the weaknesses will help every child, as TM indicated she wanted, to achieve.

Hear, hear!

I would also add that the dividing line between 'academic' and 'vocational' has become increasingly blurred. Engineers and IT professionals need to be able to do maths. Electricians need to understand physics, etc etc. Even the traditional 'liberal' subjects, such as history, are essential for an understanding of the society in which people live.

I agree with you about the dividing lines DD and with WW's excellent post.

How vain to think that, when you take over as leader of a party and PM, the government has to be in your image. Grammar schools were not in the Conservative Manifesto so who, exactly, does she think she is? Perhaps she will be trying walking on water shortly.

There was some discussion about the increasing costs of a private education on TV recently. It is possible that this policy is aimed firmly at those who cannot afford true private ed but will invest in tutors and extra help to get their child into a grammar school. In other words it is nothing to do with education but is a vote spinner. The platitudes being trotted out about providing for bright children from poorer backgrounds are just there to make you feel that the Conservatives are a caring party.