Social mobility and grammar schools

So what will happen post Brexit, I wonder. Will the money be found, or will it be the end of apprenticeships?

Who knows?

feweek.co.uk/2016/06/17/my-brexit-fears-for-apprenticeships/

Most of Wales voted out, didn't they?

Yes.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-wales-vote-leave-eu-referendum-result-brussels-funding-economy-a7136196.html

Daphnedill - i hope we are not considered to be bragging when after all these years we admit to being om the top table in the top class.

In the Uk you are not to be anything better than your peers.

That is what grammar schools are about, to look after the brightest children, in this way a country can thrive and survive.

What about the millions of children who live in poverty? Do they not matter?

MX . 'to look after the brightest children, in this way a country can thrive and survive.'

this is of course essential, I agree - but id does NOT have to be done at the detriment of the other children. A society where the 'others' remain ignorant and ignored- is poised for disaster.

What do you suggest we do with 'the others' ???

I mean, we used to have mines and factories, wars even, for 'the others' - so what now?

@Margaret

I actually mentioned that to show how perverse the system is. I didn't work hard at school, but somehow managed to blag my way through exams. I don't think I actually deserved any reward, such as going to grammar school.

Comprehensive schools also look after the brightest, as I've witnessed with my own children.

Unfortunately, the UK doesn't have enough factories for the 'others'.

What do grammar schools do that comprehensive schools can't provide?

Sorry to bomb the thread with posts, but thinking about the German economy, because I know Margaret lives there. It's generally recognised that the backbone of the Germany economy is skilled engineering and its apprenticeship system. Isn't that more a result of the 'Realschulen' and subsequent training than the grammar school (Gymnasium) pupils?

Give a sense of superiority?

Oh, I'm sure comprehensives could manage that!

Anything else?

Good comprehensives cater extremely well for the brightest children.
My DG2 is in a grammar school area and will take the exam in September. Many of her class have had four years of expensive private coaching.
She is a very bright child and has got high marks in practice papers. She will almost certainly pass, but will choose to go to the local Academy, which is an outstanding school with a challenging mixed-ability intake. She didn't like the rather precious, single-sex atmosphere of the grammar schools she visited.
It is a very different world from the grammar schools of our generation.

It seems to me that often people who talk about Comprehensives have no experience of them at all- there is a feeling that they are sort of, Sec Mods for all, somehow.

At the last school I taught- there was a team dedicated at looking at all the bright kids who were under-achieving- finding the reasons why, and giving them support in order to remedy the situation- that was especially boys- with great success.

Part of the problem is that if people live in fully selective areas, the remaining schools are secondary moderns, although sometimes they're called comprehensives. It's almost as bad in areas, especially on county borders, where there are a number of faith, partially selective and independent schools.

Parents play the system and send their offspring over county borders, even if their own area is comprehensive. This leaves the remaining schools without their most able pupils. It's particularly bad round London - read some 'Mumsnet' threads to see what kind of 'angst' this causes.

A school is only really comprehensive if it takes a full range of abilities at 11.

Ah yes, agreed. As said, I became a secondary teacher/6th Form specialist and my kids went to school, in Leics which was fully Comprehensive. Well not fully, especially in my last school, as it was a small University town with 3 secondary schools with 6th Forms- so the creaming effect was very much there. Ours was Comprehensive but there was a Catholic School across the road (and I know that many who attended were 'Catholic' only due to grandparents- and only attended Church so that kids could access the school) - and a private school with a long tradition.

Our school had a huge mixture- and thank goodness, some very bright students from academic parents from the Uni across the road. The school would have been much better without the 'creaming' effect. So yes, I can see how, where Grammar schools are still present in the State Sector, that would be even more so.

One advantage of GS over CS, which I don't think has been mentioned, is the size ie number of pupils.
For a shy or nervous child it must be very difficult to suddenly move from a PS of a few hundred to a CS of thousands with so many unfamiliar faces. GSs are usually smaller.
The fear of the transfer sometimes leads to school refusal.

Does that mean there aren't any shy pupils in comps or who don't pass the exam to get into grammar school. Or are you saying they don't deserve the same consideration because they're not as clever?

Not at all - where do you get that from? Nothing to do with clever or not.
Quite the opposite - I've never liked the huge size of comps. Earlier I've been arguing against GSs, just thought of one point in their favour.

When Comp.ed. was first introduced I was working in the Special Ed. service and saw how traumatic the transfer was for children with learning difficulties. Maybe things have changed now.

Some Primary schools are less than 100 - more like a cosy family atmosphere.
Going to on to a comprehensive of 1,00 - 2,000 must be very daunting, particularly as they mix the children up so that they are not in the same form as their old school mates and may know no-one at all.

All the comprehensives where I've worked have treated special needs children very well and the provision has improved tremendously over the years. There is usually a special needs base, which the pupils see as a retreat and an army of TAs who know them extremely well and whom they regard as second parents.

The school my children attended has over 2000 pupils and many of the new pupils come from rural primaries with a hundred or so pupils. The school knows that the change could be traumatic, so puts a lot of effort into the transition. The new pupils each have a Sixth Form buddy, who show them round for the first few days and answer questions. I've asked some of them how they coped and all seem quite happy. Most of them say they enjoy the new opportunities and facilities. I think they have begun to find small primaries quite claustrophobic.

On the other hand, I know that some of the highest achieving so-called comprehensives actually advertise the fact that they make no extra provision for SN pupils as a way of deterring parents from sending their children to the schools.

All the comprehensives where I've worked have treated special needs children very well and the provision has improved tremendously over the years. There is usually a special needs base, which the pupils see as a retreat and an army of TAs who know them extremely well and whom they regard as second parents.

The school my children attended has over 2000 pupils and many of the new pupils come from rural primaries with a hundred or so pupils. The school knows that the change could be traumatic, so puts a lot of effort into the transition. The new pupils each have a Sixth Form buddy, who show them round for the first few days and answer questions. I've asked some of them how they coped and all seem quite happy. Most of them say they enjoy the new opportunities and facilities. I think they have begun to find small primaries quite claustrophobic.

On the other hand, I know that some of the highest achieving so-called comprehensives actually advertise the fact that they make no extra provision for SN pupils as a way of deterring parents from sending their children to the schools.