"GrannyGravy13 Tue 31-Dec-24 19:11:57
It’s simple really improve state education, reintroduce grammar schools UK wide.
Do you mean grammar schools for every child? Not every child thrives at the same kind of school, and state education, by definition, aims to educate every child. Grammar schools are good schools for some, not so much so for others - and the others deserve to have money and effort spent on their education too, otherwise they will grow up uneducated and ignorant. An educated workforce is a national asset. An uneducated and ignorant one is not.
The rationale for grammar schools was that some pupils learnt faster and deeper than others while some needed to go more slowly, some could follow lecture-style lessons in a large class while some needed one-to-one tuition, some could sit still for an hour or more at a time, while some did better if shorter bouts of theory were interspersed with periods of physical activity, some had clever minds, some clever hands, some clever hearts. Some would have a future in academic or theoretical work, some with hand skills, some in caring for others. Those were different abilities and it was thought that schools with different approaches would suit different learning styles.
So were born grammar schools (which offered to selected clever pupils a free education which didn't end for all at about 14, as it did previously unless their parents sent them to private schools either because they had the spare money to afford it or because they won a scholarship funded by a philanthropist that paid the fees of a few outstanding pauper children.) Other possibilities were free technical schools (for the budding artisans and tradesmen) or the free new secondary moderns (for those who neither qualified as clever enough for a grammar school nor showed signs of inheriting enough of a manual skill to go to a technical school.
Then there were the different DISabilities. Some had problems with their sight, or their hearing, or their mobility, or their mental, emotional, or physical development. There were special schools where the teaching style was suited to the abilities of these children.
All these different types of schools needed more teachers, trained in the different teaching styles needed. This cost money, as did the multiplication of buildings and their maintenance and ancillary staff. Gradually, partly for financial/political reasons and partly because it was discovered that, surprise surprise, not all children are ready at age 11 to be put into a permanent category for life, policies changed to teaching all children in one secondary school, whatever their learning style, whatever abilities and subjects suited them, and whatever disabilities they suffered from. A teacher was expected to teach in several styles and levels simultaneously in one classroom, and often to teach subjects at secondary level other than their own specialist knowledge when there were not the funds to support more staff.
After decades of trying to run a state education system without enough funding there is at last the beginning of an attempt to make up for what has been lost. It should not focus just on educating the academic/intellectual/theoretical section of the workforce. "State Education" is more than that.
