We’re out of time - thanks to all who took part. We’ll be back for another debate at midday next Thursday.
Restricting grammar schools prices out the people they were designed to help
Interesting view from Diana in Belfast (formerly the Midlands); contrasting her own experience of grammar school with her sons’ education.
I went to local grammar school, where pupils were streamed on basis of 11+ scores (age adjusted). The A stream had high concentration of children from single child families. For the catchment area, an extremely high proportion of children had parents with middle class, professional backgrounds. The B to E classes were still more middle class than the children who had failed. The school budget per child was higher and there were parental contributions to school fund which improved resources.
This was in the 70s and exam results were good at the grammar - but 60 out of 70 of council estate primary classmate failed and the secondary modern had very poor results (low grade CSEs and not many of those per pupil) as expectation was that they would find work in shipyard, tobacco factories and textile mills and so it wasn’t necessary to spend much money on their education.
A generation later, my sons went to the local primary that went into special measure shortly after they left, then onto inner city comprehensive with remit of taking across ability range (number of high academic students balanced by same number of low with most being in middle). The school was judged outstanding while they were there and had higher than city average EAL and FSM and they had a wider, better education than I had.
How can we know whether the 11+ is reliable or appropriate?
Let's assume that 11+ selection is great and that grammar schools do fuel social mobility.
Does anyone have confidence that, after the SATs fiasco and GCSE/A-level reform, that the methodology and marking of any such 11+ exam will be reliable or appropriate? The Department of Education, OFQUAL and private contractors' performance with respect to exams has been appalling. They also seem to be totally unaccountable.
For an 11+ exam believed by the government to increase opportunity for 'bright, poor children' or, indeed any child, it has to be designed and implemented with full regard given to the impact of the results. Not the careless, casual, half-arsed approach driven by a handful of politicians' personal opinion. Children and families deserve better than what they've had so far.
'We shouldn't make policy based on individual stories but on overall trends'
Huw Swanborough, in Manchester, writes as someone who attended grammar school from 2000-2007.
I’m grammar school educated, but I see no reason to reintroduce them or make them more widespread. Whilst there are obviously stories of boys/girls made good by the grammar school system, it should be telling that these are always individual anecdotes.
We shouldn’t make policy based on individual stories but on overall trends. There is no overall trend to say that grammar schools are better for the country’s education, let alone social mobility. I knew plenty of millennials who have not ‘succeeded’ from grammar school, and the largely academic curriculum was also not helpful in equipping them with the knowledge and tools for working in trades. Whilst I did Latin, ancient greek, combined cadet force etc. we had minimal teaching in areas of design and IT, and nothing at all in areas like electronics, home economics or hands-on workshop skills.
I loved my school, but it did not bestow miraculous education by way of being a grammar school. It forced a lot of kids who passed selection, but had no interest in purely academic subjects, to share classes with those who did - and for whom the school purely catered.
The very worst thing about them though, is ever establishing an idea that grammar school means you’ve made it in life. To tell whole swathes of 16-18 year olds they’ve already failed because they didn’t have access to a selective school at11 is beyond ridiculous.
Updated
Comment via our form from Colin Watson, a parent in Ramsgate, Kent, an area of England that still has selection in secondary education.
We live in an area with a grammar school. My children did not go to the grammar school as we moved here at short notice after the cut-off for the entry exam. My younger son, however, moved to the grammar school for sixth form as his school did not offer the subjects he wanted to study.
This is the problem of selective education - it is not about the re-introduction of grammar schools, it is about the re-introduction of second-class, second-rate secondary modern education and the deprivation of finance from those schools.
Stop making this about the opportunities that grammar schools provide for social mobility and the “envy” of socialists - ask the simple question, “Are you in favour of bringing back under-funded, under-resourced secondary moderns ?”
Here’s a gratuitous link to a song by former Hefner singer and secondary modern teacher Darren Hayman.
Updated
According to Nicholas Barton, perhaps we should be concerning ourselves more about the language around grammar schools, rather than the schools themselves.
Unfortunately, this issue has become all tangled up with the issue of being labeled a "success" or a "failure". One type of school is no better or worse than another type if school. Actually what determines the effectiveness of a school is the quality of the teaching staff.
No child is the same as another, each have their own unique set of abilities. Some are more artistic, some are more practical, some are more sporty and some are more academic. Unfortunately, we live in a society where our "worth" is determined by what we do for a living, which is frequently related to how much we earn. University education is associated with jobs that provide a higher salary and this is perceived as more desirable.
As grammar schools appear to be more effective at training kids to achieve the qualifications to gain access to university this means that gaining entry is seen as a success.
The issue is actually not that kids who don't gain access are a failure, but that we don't value or haven't invested in those professions that are more technical in nature and therefore the perception is that they are a failure.
The entry test to grammar schools shouldn't be "success" or "failure", but should be a more neutral "academic" or "technical". But as long as we continue to think plumbers are worth less than doctors that is a forlorn hope.
‘Within two years she had gone from being one of the worst to one of the best’
A very happy mother, of a daughter at a grammar school in Bexleyheath, says selective schools help inspire children.
“I come from Poland where we start education at the age of seven. We moved here when our daughter was about to start school. When she was in year four, I asked around about the British education system and was recommended a grammar school.
“I didn’t think she could pass as she was one of the worst students in her English class. That said we spoke Polish at home and I also allowed her to play a lot as I knew she was still very small. I had a feeling she would catch up when she got older though.
“We decided to give it a try and signed her up for private tuition costing around £900. Additionally my husband would practice maths with her, but unfortunately we couldn’t help her much with English. She passed! Within two years she had gone from being one of the worst to one of the best in her class in English.
“I absolutely think selective schools are a good thing. They lift up students and give them a goal. They give them the opportunity to learn among the strongest minds in their age groups.”
Updated
'I had no chance with the 11+'
A view from David Crawford, a reader in Germany who attended school in the 1960s.
Due to domestic problems - resentful Stepfather- my extended family rescued me. I was unable to cope with primary school discipline. I had no chance with the 11+. but my aunt taught me how to read. So despite everything I was literate, which crucial.
I landed at local secondary modern. It was a poor area - aspiration was seen as eccentric. You were second-class anyway.
Without my Scottish aunts I wouldn’t have got to university but I did. It took me well into my second year before I rid myself of the insecurities deriving from this stigmatisation.
l retain a ‘by the back door’ feeling to this day.
I suppose I was luckier than many.
Updated
Apologies for forgetting about our friends north of the border.
They were scrapped in the early 1960s in Scotland - those that remained anyway.
They're pretty much out of living memory in Scotland. They're not on anyone's radar. They're not missed and not wanted. They're not coming back. All kids should have excellent schools - and all schools should cater effectively for the whole range of abilities. That's the Scottish model; we think the obsession of some English with segregating kids into different schools by ability is just weird.
'All children should have access to the best education'
View from a reader in Rotherham:
I went to a grammar school and had, what I would describe as a a pretty mediocre education. However, surely the point is that all children should have access to the best education, on their doorstep which offers a curriculum that allows each child to fulfil their potential whatever interests or talents they have. When we had selection only about 10% of working class children achieved 5 O levels, after the introduction of the comprehensive school system system that rose to just less than 50%.
That speaks for itself. However, I do suspect the government has another agenda: have a few grammar school staffed by qualified and reasonably well paid staff and the remaining schools will be staffed by the mainly unqualified, allowing the sponsors of academy chains to divert funding to their own already inflated salaries.
Updated
‘We are all prisoners of our own experience’
Enobarbus from Cambridge has taught in various schools and shares their view on why reintroducing grammar schools would be disastrous.
“Son of an unskilled factory worker and a cleaner, I failed the 11 plus, went to a comprehensive, read English at Cambridge and then did research. Both my sons went to comprehensive schools and got firsts at Oxford.
“We are all prisoners of our own experience. On the whole, grammar schools favour those already privileged. Kids growing up without articulate parents, books in the home, the expectations that university is where people thrive, are unlikely to take, let alone pass a selection test at eleven. Mrs May’s assumption is that bright kids can do it, no matter what sort of home they are brought up in. This is because she lacks the imagination, the schooling, to understand what being the child of really ordinary parents is like or that kids who aren’t impressive at eleven may be outstanding at eighteen, given the chance and the stimulation of being taught alongside other bright children.
“Reintroducing grammar schools would be a disastrous policy because it would rob comprehensive schools of the talented kids (and ambitious parents) without which a school too easily becomes a ghetto of underachievement. I have worked in a school like that. Even with brilliant, dedicated staff, it was very difficult to raise standards because so many of the kids had various disadvantages and their parents had such low expectations: you need a pool of very able kids to show what can be done and, quite frankly, to offer teachers an attractive kind of work. I managed to get half a dozen kids, even from that sink school, to read English at Cambridge but it was an enormous struggle.
“Comprehensive schools make for a more coherent society but they have been grossly underfunded and, as the PM acknowledges, suffer from their postcodes: there needs to be some managed social mixing done at every level.”
Updated
A view from a reader in Lincolnshire, an area of the country that still has selective secondary education.
There are some comprehensives, especially in the big city (Lincoln). My three kids all passed their 11+ but if they hadn’t, they would have been fine; the local secondary modern is an excellent school. In this county though, selection is more by location.
Where catchment areas are up to 20 miles in diameter, where you live dictates which school you go to. The local authority will not provide free transport for schools outside your immediate area, so poorer families often have no choice of school. It is a nightmare if you have to get one child to the grammar school 15 miles west of where you live and another one 8 miles to the east - and if you still have one at the nearest primary 3 miles to the south.
As for whether a grammar school education enables a better start for child, I couldn’t say. Not too many highly successful people have had their start in a Lincolnshire grammar school.
'Grammar schools offer a way out. It'll be a vote winner'
A commenter makes a point often made by supporters of grammar schools - that they are a means of offering working class children a “way out” of poverty.
In my final year of primary school in inner London. There were kids in my class who were functionally illiterate, got into fights more-or-less every other day, had no other aspirations other than becoming a drug-dealing gang member and throughout their secondary schools, spent their time bullying and attacking anyone with any aspirations to be a doctor, lawyer or generally get good grades in exams as a 'neek'.
Fortunately I was able to get into a grammar school out in Surrey where this wasn't the case.
The likes of Corbyn and Thornberry and Abbott are blissfully unfamiliar with such a situation (although perhaps not, as they invariably send their kids to private school) - but this is the reality for a lot of parents and kids. Grammar schools offer a way out and I'm confident this bill will get through.
It'll be a vote-winner too.
Keep them but make them all private
Not scrapped, but made private- fee paying. Same for faith schools. Then the wealthy can still have their precious 'choice'.
Taxpayer funded schools need to have transparent, non selective admissions criteria; drawn from the local area; be secular and comprehensive in nature, with no exceptions; and no school should be allowed to exclude a child on the grounds of their special needs.
Schools in deprived catchment areas should attract extra funding, so that they can afford the extra provision children need offer enhanced salaries for teachers.
Once you take out class and snobbery, this really isn't rocket science. Whaddya mean, we used to have these arrangements? Oh that's right - we did. RIP state education.
Updated
‘What about children with learning difficulties?’
Alice believes that grammar schools lead to a more divided society, and in particular fail to consider those who struggle learning new skills and information.
“As a child diagnosed with dyslexia at the age of seven, I already felt the school system was against me. I struggled with the simplest reading exercises, yet I was very lucky. I had wonderful and supportive parents and teachers who fought for me and helped me with my struggles.
“However, despite progress at the age of 11 I still failed every exam I sat. It felt beyond belief that this test, at such a young age, was to determine my future. At the age of 27, with a distinction in a postgraduate degree from a Russell group university, I still struggle with my confidence - a direct result of feeling worthless and deemed stupid in my early years.
“I therefore worry that the reintroduction of grammar schools will not consider the special and often individual circumstances for those with learning difficulties, denying many children with the equal opportunity to thrive in their own time. The end result as I see it is a more divided society rather than equal opportunity and standards of education for all.”
Are grammar schools popular with voters? A YouGov poll found two thirds of voters would send their kids to grammar school if there was one nearby (and if they passed); but their popularity varies dramatically across the country.
‘They definitely have a future in our country’
Joe Oxton from Wirral thinks grammar schools serve a purpose and caters for children who prefer traditionally academic subjects.
“Grammar schools have a massive impact in my local area in Wirral as we have several single sex grammar schools. Therefore the majority of school children take the 11+. It is one of the few remaining areas where this still occurs.
“They definitely have a place in the future of education in this country. However, I can see how they could be and are perceived as divisive. They should be known for focusing on traditionally ‘academic’ subjects and every child should have the opportunity to go to one if they show an interest in such subjects.”
The debate is underway
Comments are now open - and if you’re lacking a commenting account, you can contribute via a form (anonymously or otherwise).
‘I’d much prefer it if there were comprehensive only schools in the area’
Despite having one of two children at a grammar school, Beth from West Yorkshire still opposes them.
“I have two children, one passed the entrance exam to the local state grammar, one did not. The whole process was completely stressful and I felt immense guilt at my 10 year old son feeling like he had ‘failed’. The child that passed is not ‘more intelligent’ than the one who didn’t pass - he is probably better at exams and was lucky on the day.
“Both of them are doing extremely well though I am more concerned for the one who is at the grammar as I feel he gets a less rounded education and mixes with children of a similar social background, rather than a wide range of children from all backgrounds which my other son does. Even if both children went to the grammar I would still be opposed to them and would much prefer there to be comprehensive only schools in the area where we live so that they could have both gone there.”
While we’re waiting for the debate to start, here are a few views on the subject via Twitter.
Jeremy Corbyn easy win at #PMQs Theresa May has made a serious misjudgement on grammar schools. Her MPs know it.
— Lucy Powell MP (@LucyMPowell) September 14, 2016
I've written on @ConHome with a message to Conservative MPs on grammar schools https://t.co/UYyo89HFs2
— Tim Farron (@timfarron) September 12, 2016
Opening new grammar schools was the wrong policy before. It's the wrong policy now. The Govt should drop their plans pic.twitter.com/73Km8Lgzlk
— Mayor of London (@MayorofLondon) September 14, 2016
Posting this again: grammar schools do not, I repeat, *DO NOT* help working class kids pic.twitter.com/OYNpGImgxD
— James Bloodworth (@J_Bloodworth) September 9, 2016
Theresa May’s plan to extend grammar school provision have been met with widespread opposition, with Jeremy Corbyn challenging the prime minister on the topic at Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday.
The Labour leader said the prime minister had created “unity between Ofsted and teaching unions and former education secretaries on both sides of this house – a true era of unity in education thinking”.
May countered by pointing out both she and Corbyn had benefited from a grammar school education, and said that an increase in selection would not lead to a lowering of standards for students who did not get in to non-selection schools.
“He believes in levelling down; we believe in levelling up,” she said. “Can I gently remind the right honourable gentleman, he went to grammar school, I went to a grammar school; it’s what got us where we are today.”
In our debate today we focus on the advantages and disadvantages of selective education. Did you go to a grammar school, or did you send your children to one? Do you agree with May that grammar schools can help with social mobility, or do you share author Michael Morpurgo’s view that they are “divisive” and “quite deeply stupid”?
Comments will be open from 12pm BST - if you want to share your opinions and experiences before then, you can fill out the form below.
Looking forward to hearing your views.
.png?w=600)
The intention of Grammar Schools to provide the best education for talented children irrespective of their social background remains wholly laudable. We should encourage such schools nationwide thereby eradicating the tendency of to form expensive areas around the remaining Grammars. By trying to kill off or restrict Grammar Schools, politicians have ensured the worst possible outcome by pricing out the very people the Grammar Schools were designed to help.
No nation can thrive if it aims for a standard education since the best will undershoot their potential. The nation will be condemned to mediocrity.
(I attended a Technical High School in the 1960s-1970s).