Reintroduction of Secondary modern schools for majority of children.

No, I think I read it in the Guardian actually...

It's that dratted Daily what's it again, telling porkies.

50 + 50? Errrmmm...no, sorry! Can't do that! I've run out of fingers...and toes.

Hope you appreciated the maths there.

Wow, the whole 100%! I can't be blamed, I gave up teaching over 25 years ago.

Presumably the 50% who don't go to university can't spell either, so that means none of them can spell (allegedly).

Are you suggesting that all those who go to university can't spell or construct a sentence properly? All 50% of school leavers?
Your sentence may be constructed properly, but your logic leaves something to be desired.

And you know for a fact that they can't write correctly, do you? Are you a recruitment boss?

There's no point anyway. If they could write correctly, they'd become orthography 'experts' and people would sneer at them. Being an expert is just so last year!

Yes of course it does!

How on earth is getting 50 per cent of school leavers into university good for the UK and industry if they can't even spell or construct a sentence properly? It's one of the main complaints company recruitment bosses have about graduates.

Why will you be happy? Does it affect you in some way?

I'll be happy when all school leavers and/or university graduates can spell, punctuate and use grammar correctly.

What's the point of 50% going to university? Really?

I agree with you, J52. It's quite interesting looking at the profiles of Year 7 pupils. I've always worked in schools where CATs tests were administered plus a reading test (I think it was called DE). It's not uncommon to see uneven profiles and in the schools where I worked, pupils with very uneven profiles were given further test.

For example, a child with a very high reading score but average non-verbal score is often from a supportive family, which has encouraged reading, although the child is not inately that bright. Sometimes such a child will initially do well, but then tail off when higher level cognitive skills are needed. Conversely, a child with high CATs scores, but low reading, might have been underachieving for a variety of reason.

Children whose CATs scores didn't 'match' their SATs results were often retested. It could have been that they came from primary schools which spoonfed for the SATs tests for their own league tables. We knew which schools did that, which is why we preferred CATs to SATs.

Until the 1970s and 1980s it wasn't uncommon for specific learning difficulties not to be recognised.

Of course, another use of such assessment is to help indicate any pupil who shows signs of dyslexia, which should have been identified earlier. Those pupils then can get appropriate support.

Pupils who do very well, in the assessment, can also be supported in their achievement.

Not all tests ( assessments) are used for negative purposes!

In any case, there's no point in any of it, because if children work hard, become educated and get a good job as an 'expert', nobody will take any notice of them anyway and tabloid readers will sneer at them. The playground bullies have won.

@JS2

That's what I understood, so I'm glad you confirmed it. I did my PGCE in London when the ILEA still existed and that's how the London Reading Test was explained to me.

I remember there was some discussion about having balanced intakes in London, but I don't think it ever came into being. I know some cities in America tried it to avoid neighbourhood sink schools.

I do know of one school which uses assessments to achieve a balanced intake. It's a former selective fee paying school, which became a state-funded comprehensive. In order to ensure a comprehensive intake, it does use assessments, but it doesn't stop bright children going, because most of them wouldn't have gone anyway unless their parents could pay the fees.

GrandmaMoira,

Academies don't set entrance exams, although a few are allowed to reserve a number of places for children who are gifted in (for example) music. They use it as a backdoor selection policy, which actually means that children of pushy parents are more likely to get into 'good' schools.

A few schools use assessments such as you describe to try and achieve a balanced intake, but this practice has almost died out since schools have become responsible for their own admissions policies. It was an attempt to avoid people moving into catchment areas just to get their children into the so-called 'best' schools. It didn't mean that brighter children had less chance of getting into a good school. It meant that all schools had the chance to be good schools.

Where did you hear this, GrandmaMoira? If your grandchildren live in or around London, they're taking tests, because so many of the schools are voluntary-aided and semi-selective. Children don't have to take the test, but the sharp-elbowed middle classes choose to make their children do them, often paying tutors a fortune to spoonfeed them and causing themselves a deal of worry. The population density also means that it's relatively easy to go to a school in a neighbouring authority, where a handful of grammar schools still exist. People also play the faith game.

Teaching in inner London in the late 70s early 80s, I administered the London reading Test. I can't remember it being used for the purpose described.
If I remember correctly, it was a booklet of short passages, with visual cues and then close passages to be completed for answers.

The point being, The ratification and norms reflected the language usage of inner city children.

Many reading and IQ tests previously used ( and some are still used to day ) had norms that were based on the outdated language use of decades before.

Not sure what you are describing GrandmaMoira. Or where or when.
Certainly the case that academies, if they become selective grammar academies, will have to set their own tests because who else is going to do it. Local authorities are certainly not going to be running a borough-wide 11+ for schools that are outside their control.

I think you are making that up, grandmaMoira, about comprehensives taking an equal number at each level. Most comprehensives have always taken those that live closest. In fact all the ones I taught at and my sons and grandchildren went to did exactly that. So if they take all those who live locally, how can they work out equal numbers of each level?

Brighter kids have as good a chance of a good education at a comprehensive as anywhere else, grammar schools or academies.

I've just discovered there's another system in modern schools which is worse than the old ways. I took 11+ with a chance of passing to Grammar school (which I did), my kids took London Reading Test which determined your ability level so all comprehensives took an equal number of pupils at each level - this meant brighter kids had little chance of a decent school - the opposite of the grammar school system. Now each academy school sets its own tests so children have to take a test at each of their four choices, not just one test at their own primary school, with the same result as before - brighter kids have less chance of getting into better schools - but more stress in taking all these tests.

To keep one's offspring away from the oiks for seven years and then to get them into the 'better' universities. See Mumsnet for the 'angst' caused by university league tables and how to get Tarquin or Jemima into Exeter, Durham or Warwick if they're not good enough for Oxford or Cambridge.

And now nearly 50% go to university, what IS the point of grammar schools?

good question daphnedill.
I live in hope that this idea will not get through, it will be voted down like the plan to privatise children's services.

This has all gone a bit quiet with all the Brexit and Trump stuff in the headlines, but it seems that May hasn't changed her mind.

I must admit I'm a bit baffled. A grammar school education has traditionally been liberal (in the old-fashioned sense of the word) and has encouraged pupils towards university to become experts and then on to good jobs (the elite).

It would appear that both libralism and elitism. As liberalism, expertise and elitism are now apparently out of favour, what's the point of a grammar school education?

I agree with you, JessM. There's a very fine line here. My own feeling is that traditional academic routes should be kept open for as long as possible, so that pupils don't inadvertently close doors.

Some schools still do offer vocational courses from the age of 14 and most genuinely comprehensive comprehensives offer vocational courses in the sixth form or have arrangements as part of a consortium.

If I had a magic wand (which I don't), I would scrap GCSEs and introduce 14 (or 15)-18 pathways.