Is selective education being reintroduced by the back door?

My sec mod only did CSEs and so I had to move after 3 years to one that did GCEs and then to the grammar school.

No answer to my question- why can't my sons of very different abilities be educated in the same school? Why would they need to be separated?

If people don't get their ideas of comprehensives from TV they certainly seem to think they are 'bog standard' and all similar.

I went to Grammar School, but really wanted to go to the Sec.Mod which was brand new at the time and most of my friends were going there, so I didn't feel pleased at all.They also had a nicer uniform, sigh.We did GCE's at our school ( and A levels, there was a 6th form) and my friends at the Sec. mod. Did CSE's. the CSE's were not so well thought of by employers.

Not all grammar schools were any good. Mine wasn't. Having been a bright kid at junior school I got completely lost in the grammar system and I hated it. My younger sister went to a sec mod in the same town and did very well.

My friend's grammar school was dreadful- stuck her in a form called 'the remove' and didn't bother with them!

'The fat owl of the Remove'....... Billy Bunter ( non pc in those days.)

Leticia if you live in a small town there is bog all choice of comprehensives for your DC too.
I wanted to go to the Secondary Modern, because we took the 11+ there and had a lovely lunch.

Ah yes, a friend was in the Remove at the boys' Grammar School - didn't do him any harm, he became head of an even bigger school (and he was never fat)

But it will be far worse with selection, if you are not selected- there will still be bog all choice but with the top 25% missing. I prefer mine in a school where you know that some are aiming for the top.

Still no one has given me a reason why my children, of very different abilities need to be in different schools.

My friend in the remove did very well - she is an intelligent woman- but it didn't do much for her self confidence as a child.

As I recall the remove was for children who didn't do well enough at O level (or matrick in Billy Bunter's day?) to get into the 6th form. I presume they did resits?

I agree with Leticia that its a shame if siblings cant all go to the same school. It must be awful to be the only one to go to a different school vecause you 'failed' - probably affects you all your life. Apart from the logistics for parents having children at different schools.

My friend was put there before O'levels and I doubt she would have been allowed to stay for the 6th form, had she wanted to.

I am just trying to imagine the shouts of joy as 75% of the population say 'wow- no comprehensive for my child, they are so lucky to get the sec mod instead'!

It was even worse with 2 sets of twins that I know where one passed and one failed in each set. That is what happens when you have to draw a line between children of equal ability.

I doubt any grandparents on here would like to deal with twin grandchildren on either side of the divide, when they know that in a different day it could have been the other way around.
Very difficult with siblings without offering platitudes that the child can see straight through.

Thanks for the link to the previous thread about grammar schools Wilma. It is excellent!

A great link- ignored by those who love to believe the myths.

At my grammar school the 'remove' was a top class reserved for the kids who were expected to get good GCE (as it then was) results, followed by sixth form entry and then university. The rest of us were not officially streamed and were randomly allocated to a,b,c,d,e or f forms but it was noticeable that there was more trouble in the forms labelled 'e' and 'f'.

At my secondary modern school, there was a class officially called The Remedial. The children in the Remedial class were aged 11 - 15, all in one small class room. They lived a separate life to the rest of the school, I remember them going everywhere as a group. I didn't know what Remedial meant but the other girls in 1A soon explained 'they're all backward, tat's what remedial means".

Let's face it grammar schools are selective and therefore always will get good results - better, on average, than even the best comprehensives - based on the selection of the pupils. The best predictor of results has always been the level the child is working at when they are 10. (not the teaching or type of school)
There were undoubtedly some truly awful secondary moderns, judging by the schools some family members attended. And back in the 1950s and 60s most pupils left school at 14 or 15. Levels of adult illiteracy were terrible.
Today's comprehensives are, on average, incomparably better than they were back in the 1960s when they were just starting out.
It is not fair to compare todays graduates with those of 30 + years ago. Back then only a small % of 18 year olds went to university now nearly 50% do.

Before WW2 only 2% went to Uni - and very very few women.
Overall participation in higher education increased from 3.4% in 1950, to 8.4% in 1970, 19.3% in 1990 and 33% in 2000... and since then up to nearly 50% with, I believe, slightly more than 50% of them being women.

It is not fair to compare todays graduates with those of 30 + years ago. Back then only a small % of 18 year olds went to university now nearly 50% do.

In what was is it not fair to compare them, Jess? Just because there are more of them now shouldn't mean standards should be so much lower than they used to be, surely?

way

Ana most pupils took 9 'O' levels at my school, although I dropped Art for some reason.
However, I took up art again in later life and passed a B Tech.

I think the standard for getting into university is probably lower - simply because there were far fewer universities in the 1960s, and many students went to Technology colleges and polytechnics, as well as those who went to Technical College, then entered the world of work and carried on at night school.

And in those days many parents expected a child to start contributing to household expenses as soon as they could. It was markedly noticeable that, although grants were available, it was the few who had more wealthy parents who were able to stay on for 6th form and then university.

To suggest that someone should have declined a place earned at a grammar school at age 11 because they may not stay on after 'O' levels and offer that place to someone else is ludicrous.
Some children took the scholarship again at 13 and could move schools then. A couple of my friends did that.

Having said all that, I do believe that comprehensives should offer all children a fair and equal opportunity to be educated and learn to the best if their abilities, and no, my view of comprehensive education has not been learned from the tv as I have never seen any programmes about comprehensive schools (apart from a couple of episodes of 'Big School').
My knowledge of them is from real life but only relates to the schools in the areas where we have lived.
It depends where you live as to whether they are good, mediocre or have been put into special measures and if you have no choice then DC and DGC have to take their chances.

I suppose GCSE's aren't really comparable to 'O' levels anyway.

Oh well. Sigh.....

There was a comment made earlier in the thread about the literacy etc of today's graduates. That is the "not fair". It is not evidence of anything because not comparing like with like.
I don't think my own grammar school education was that good. Some of the teaching was dire. Far more is expected of teachers these days - OFSTED crank up their expectations of what a "good" or "outstanding" lesson looks like about every 3-4 years.

Yes, it was me who made the comment about numeracy and literacy, and while I accept that it wasn't comparing like with like, surely I'm not the only one to expect that all graduates should be competent in both?