Grammar Schools

Penstemmon, thank you. Yes, this is what I meant. Of course you don't need to have taught in a comprehensive school to have a good idea about what actually goes on. Some parents, Governors, kitchen helpers, cleaners, and of course the students themselves do. At our school we also had some adult volunteers who helped as assistants, and also members of the community who used to attend classes with our students. They all knew- of course much better than someone who has not attended such a school or worked in one. That makes sense, surely.

Many of my family have never been in a state school, never mind a comprehensive school- and I'm afraid they have not got a clue apart from all the prejudice and hearsay.

rosequartz whether you agree with it or not there is concern amongst professionals that coaching for the 11 plus exam will give some children and unfair advantage. In fact, attempts were recently made to change the exam so that it is not so amenable to coaching.

This is not just because of an interest in an egalitarian society which subscribes to the lowest common denominator (as you put it) but because it also means that the brightest children do not always get selected for grammar school.

Less able children who have been 'hothoused' take preference over brighter children whose parents have not been able to pay for coaching or, indeed, private primary education. This cannot be good for society, can it?

Moving children up and down a set also is dependent on numbers, unfortunately. If you have an intake of 30 children per class or more, as was often the case in a High school where I was head of faculty- it can be a nightmare. Because the only way we could have slightly smaller groups for remedial/special needs, was to have classes of 34 or more in the top sets. We didn't even have space to sit them at desks! So if a few children need to be moved up, some would just have to be moved down.

If comprehensive education was properly funded and not creamed off- a lot of those difficulties would disappear.

Re more children doing better at GCSE, I can assure you that most schools spent a huge amount of time and energy at spotting children with potential who, for some reason, be it behavioural, social, or whatever- were not achieving it- and then spend more huge amounts of time and energy finding ways of helping them by any means possible, instead of letting them fall through the net. I am particularly proud of having been a small cog in these developments, and we achieved amazing results with many of them.

petallus I think we have a misunderstanding about private tuition.
Because the thread is about grammar schools you assumed I meant coaching to get children through the 11+ which was a logical assumption!

In fact I meant private tuition to help pupils obtain an A-C grade at GCSE level because the teaching at the local comprehensives(s) was so inadequate by those teschers who took some sets where one would have assumed the pupils would pass quite easily.

We have no grammar schools in our area so I have no knowledge of coaching for the 11+

Lots of misunderstanding in posts in reply to my previous post - I did think that the discussion had gone on to the merits (or otherwise) of comprehensive schools.

Yes, I thought your post was in reply to mine. As you say, a misunderstanding

No, I was just musing

In fact I wondered how you had calculated a set figure of £1,500

Must concentrate

I remember when GCSEs came in, brought in by Keith Joseph. Business people objected because they said that if all the kids were taught the same exams, they would not be able to differentiate. So Keith Joseph said not to worry, as it would only be the ABC grades that were important, the equivalent of 'O' levels, whereupon anyone who actually thought they were a good idea or had spent years working on the system threw up their hands in horror.
My kids went to comprehensives; I taught in comprehensives. I taught mixed ability classes in every school I taught in, because I did not like streaming, so did not apply to schools which were streamed. I also taught 100% course work and it was hard with the class sizes we had.
The two schools which are in trouble in the county at the moment are not comprehensives. They are free schools, one which has been going for less than two years and has class sizes that every teacher dreams of. The other was a private school, which decided that becoming a free school would free up lots of money for it.

Some of the comments on here about comprehensive schools remind me of why I gave up teaching. I wasn't prepared to take the flack for the failings of the national curriculum, and for the fact that education was never going to be funded properly so we could teach properly.

As I said earlier, the Scottish comprehensive system works well and has done for generations. Here's a current example of how it works. In S3 (equivalent of the English Y10) pupils make choices about their exam subjects. The more academic ones simply choose what Highers (roughly equivalent to what used to be Lower Sixth level exams) they are going to do. The less academic ones choose Standard Grades which are less academically challenging (used to be 'O' grades). Those judged by their teachers to be able to do well in the Highers simply miss out the Standard stage. In effect, the kids are streamed while still being at the same school.

Most English comprehensives stream for subjects like Maths and foreign languages. Lowest common denominators simply don't come into it. Saying that they do is unjustifiably negative.

The Scottish Highers/Standard streaming happens after the kids have all had the same opportunities at the same school for three years where they have been streamed, as in England, in subjects like Maths and foreign languages, right through. A kid's stream can change if her/his progress in a subject worsens or improves during the first three years. In short, it's flexible system.

Grammar schools were similarly flexible but the problem was that some academically gifted kids were "streamed out" at the age of eleven with no chance of streaming back in to the top streams because they were at a different school.

Isn't flexible streaming called setting?

I am puzzled as to how you could teach, for instance, mathematics to pupils of widely varying abilities if there is no streaming or setting as in the type of comprehensive mentioned in Djen's post.

Some less capable pupils still need to have a good grounding in what is arithmetic for everyday life and how to deal with their finances, other would-be mathematicians, engineers, scientists, doctors need far more advanced teaching.
How you can teach an amalgam of such a wide cross-section of intellects without separating them into sets is beyond me.
But I am just a parent.

A parent who had to pay for extra tuition because, although DC had some excellent teachers, some other teachers at their school should not have remained in the profession but were taking GCSE and A level classes nonetheless.
Apologies to all those excellent teachers on Gransnet but I am sure you came across them yourselves in your working life.

Able pupils who were 'streamed out' at 11 could take another examination at 13 and go on to grammar school if they passed when I was young.
(That does not mean I am stating that I am in favour of grammar schools.)

Roseq, in one school I taught at, I used to teach maths to mixed ability in an open plan school, with half the year in one area, with four teachers going round and helping whichever pupils needed help. We used a system of workcards, every pupil working his or her way through the topics, after the whole group had been introduced to the topic by one of the teachers.
It worked because all the pupils were working at their own levels, which is what is supposed to happen now.

In your example durhamjen' what happened to the children who didn't want to work? I worked in a comp. with children who had one aim and that was to disrupt every lesson that they walked into. Wonderful in theory but practically, impossible! I wasn't a teacher by the way, I just kept the un-teachable occupied, amazing what I learned.

Was just going to ask Durhamjen, which subject you taught.
For Mod langs- teaching in mixed ability groups beyond 2 years if just impossible, as so much as to be teacher led from the front. In maths, with several teachers, it is very different.

My DC went to an open-plan 'progressive' primary school. Children were allowed to get up and wander off to the play area if they felt like it. It was disastrous, brought to parents' attention by a friend who did supply there.
Juliette the 'unteachable' seem to be allowed to disrupt those who want to learn.

after the whole group had been introduced to the topic
That reinforces my point, that a whole year group is on the same topic.

What is the problem with a whole year group being on the same topic? Providing that different 'types' of children are then enabled to exploit the topic at very different levels- to the maximum extent of their ability?

Different for maths, of course- but all the children in Mod langs (German, French, Spanish, Bengali or Gujurati, etc)- would be doing the same topic at the same time. Let's say 'the family' - but it would be taught and then exploited very differently with lower ability, middle or talented groups- we would then all move to a different topic more or less at the same time, again at very different levef of detail, vocabulary, grammar and difficulty/sophistication as appropriate to the group and to some extent, individual child.

I can assure you the same happens in Grammar schools or private schools- as all departments have to have set and cover an appropriate curriculum for each year group- which has to be adhered to- with what is expected at different levels of ability. There is no way of avoiding this, and inspections make sure of it.

Mixed ability happens at every level of education. There are 4 & 5 year olds who are very able to share and work in a group of 30 and others of the same age who are still incredibly egocentric and overwhelmed by being in a big group but a reception teacher manages this through professional skill.

There are many skilled and well trained teachers , teaching at all stages of education, who are able to teach mixed ability groups very well.

Of course it is easier to teach students who are all motivated and well supported by their families and easier again if they are all at a similar stage of development/understanding.

Hands up who wants to teach the class of 30 unmotivated, angry kids form very dysfunctional families?

Indeed Penstemmon... and perhaps a timely reminder that so called 'dysfunctional' families come from all walks of life and cultures and do not adhere to stereotypes!

My first teaching job was in what was then known as a Direct Grant school, partly financed by parents paying fees. This was the 'poshest' school in the city and had some of the worst mannered children I have come across, especially one obnoxious class of 13-14 year-old girls.

Oh indeed granj children of drug users come from all social strata, kids brought up by a series of Nannies feeling neglected, kids living in homes where there is domestic abuse, parents too busy with their own lives are found at all levels of society.....

It looks as if it doesn't matter which type of school, Grammar or Comprehensive, there is going to be a real terms cut in school funding. There could be an actual cut in early years and post 16 spending and a freeze on the rest.