Grammar Schools

Should have said - very important - if the Conservatives win a majority.

Juliette, I was responsible for the ones who were not supposed to want to work. If they had been withdrawn, they would have all been together and not wanting to work. Because they watched others who wanted to work, they did, too.

However, whatever I say about it, there will be some who do not believe me.
So what's new?

Anno direct grant schools were not in any way reliant on fees from parents. They were similar to academies except wee still under the monitoring eye of a Local Authority.

may2015.com/

These polls show Labour ahead, Gracesgran.

Were not wee!

Penstemmon - it might have been slightly different in Scotland. The school I taught in received its funding direct from the Scottish Office and rather than receive LEA funding in addition, the parents did pay fees. My father was an old boy of that very school.

thatbags, may I just mention that Standard Grades have now gone and we have National 4s and 5s now, as well as Intermediate 1 and 2, so there is quite a choice of exams on the way to Highers (and Advanced Highers).

As I understand it in these selective schools a quarter of the places were directly funded by central government, while the remainder attracted fees, some paid by the Local Education Authority and some by private pupils. This was certainly true of the Direct Grant Grammar I attended (my third secondary school). The places the local authority paid for were on a "scholarship" basis.

When the system was abandoned in 1976 by the then Labour government, the schools had to decide whether to be fully local authority or fully independent.

Penstemmon - I passed the 11 plus in 1958 and went to a bi-lateral school. Interestingly on our first day the teacher asked us to put up our hands if we had passed the 11plus. I think about four kids hadn't. I went there because it was close to home.

I loved it there and enjoyed meeting a wide range of people. The catchment area included three huge council estates and three really affluent parts of the city. We mixed during House activities and during games and I learnt a lot about class etc.,

I can now get along with everyone I meet regardless of background. I wouldn't have changed it for anything.

My husband went to a Grammar School (fee paying) because he had a high 11 plus mark but he was a working class boy and was made to feel that nearly every day.

England has always been obsessed with class. Apart from a short period after WW2, now it's sinking back to the level of the 1930s. Them and us.

I had a varied educational experience..starting in English state primaries, then overseas 'British Government' schools, private boarding school and state 'bi-lateral' . My teaching experience began in inner London state primaries, then some greater London schools , back to inner -city and ending at a greater London school.
There were academically bright and able children at all of them as well as kids who struggled with basic skills. There were brilliant teachers and weak teachers, hard working people and those that did as little as they could get away with, those who really liked kids and some who dd not.

What limited kids achievement most was poor expectation.

If you put kids into a school and tell them this is a good school, you have been chosen to be here and you will do well here then usually the majority do. If you stick kids in a school where they feel they are the 'also rans' because they did not make the academic grade or feel they lost out in the lottery of school places then many will fulfill that expectation.
We need to invest and create state of the art technical and vocational schools/colleges, linked to industry, where kids, on successful completion of their tests/assessments/exams can expect to be offered jobs /apprenticeships /sponsored uni / HE places.

If I was i/c education I would have this organisation :3+-7 , 7+- 13, 13+-18. At 13 children could choose between three 'majors': Creative arts, technical and vocational or scholarly. What ever the 'major' students chose they would still have to choose courses from the other two majors to follow, e.g Major in Creative arts, subsiduary in computer programming and French.

Dram on!

I am another 11 plus failure. I went to a secondary modern and was very happy there. I left at 16 and got work straight away as a nursing cadet. I went on to do nurse training at 18 and became an SRN and after that did midwifery training and qualified though did not practi..se midwifery. I had a long career as a nurse before retiring.
One of my sisters passed for the grammar school but was unhappy there.She left at 15 and got what was known as a ''dead end' job in a shop. She worked in shops till she retired and was very happy doing so.
My DGD1 went to a comprehensive with a poor reputation.She was one of the brightest pupils there and went to university and obtained a degree in Maths. She is now working in a big London bank and training to be a Chartered Accountant. Her sister, DGD2 went to the same school and began working as a trainee PA to a head of department at a university but is on Maternity leave at the moment.

Penstemmon have we now sorted out how Direct Grants were funded or do you have evidence that no one paid as you said previously? I my view they were the most selective of selective schools and I wouldn't put it past the Conservatives to try something along the same lines again, yet again being divisive at an early age.

Gracesgran, the Direct Grant school in which I taught was, up to a point, selective, and scholarships were given to bright kids whose parents couldn't afford the fees. However, there was certainly another kind of selection because some of the youngsters would never have been accepted on any academic criterion. I viewed our lowest streams as the place where the well-to-do of the city sent their less able offspring; though they might be good at rugby, hockey, tennis...

Thanks, wheniwas. All the jargon goes in one ear and out the other with me, especially as Minibags is going straight for Highers, as that means I don't have to remember what everything else is called!

My parents did "school ceriptificate" (like 'O' level, I believe) and A-levels. I and my siblings did O- and A-levels, my elder two daughters did GCSEs and A-levels, my ex-husband and his siblings did O-grades, Highers and Sixth
Year Studies, Minibags is going to do Highers and then, probably, whatever it is they do in Sixth year in Scottish schools.

Jargon, jargon, rhubarb, rhubarb

ceriptificate!!!!

Is that legal in Scotland bags ?

Good post, Penstemmon

Although there will always be late developers who suddenly 'wake up' after the age of 13 and who could then be limited if they have to make a choice at 13 of an academic or less academic route.

Friend's daughter got poor grades in all her GCSE's (nothing higher than a D) but later on did her A levels at night school, an OU degree whilst holding down a job and bringing up a child as a single parent (she got a first) and now has a Masters (with an award for being top student).
School had written her off completely.
They told her parents she just hadn't got much ability to succeed.

Re Direct Grant Schools The ones I had direct knowledge of were fully funded by the direct grant from the government /LEAs (as they were then).
The direct grant grammar school my DH attended had no fee paying pupils. It is now a fully fee paying school.
However I now understand that in some areas all places in DGGS were free and in others some pupils paid fees. You live and learn!

Good luck to Minibags! In 6th Year she might do more Highers - it is possible to do one in one year if you work hard! DDs did biology and Spanish like that (one each). Or there are Advanced Highers, which she might do in subjects she wants to take further. The advantage of Highers over A-levels IMO is that if she gets all she needs for university or whatever she wants to do in 5th year, she then has the option of a year to broaden or deepen her education without all the pressure.

Thanks for the extra information Penstemmon. I always thought it was a way to buy places in the independent system but it sounds as if some started as independents and some as local authority.

In my opinion my DS would have done so much better at a grammar school if there were any him to have gone to but there were not. He went to the local comprehensive and had to try to cope with pupils who took great joy in disrupting lessons, throwing chairs around, talking through lessons and playing on phones etc. He used to get so annoyed at not being able to study and take in what the teacher was saying that he lost faith in the system.

I passed my 11 plus, as did my brother and we both did well at grammar schools, one next to the other on the same base so that we were near each other. I respected the teachers, wouldn't have answered any back, loved the way the head wore robes in a morning for assembly and had a little fear all the time I was at secondary school, which I think is lost these days and is not a good thing for it to be. There is nothing wrong with a little fear of elders and doing the right thing by them. In my opinion.

There are good comprehensives and bad ones with everything inbetween. My children went to a comprehensive and they did not have lessons disrupted.
I went to a secondary modern and we had the best reputation for behaviour in the city- the Head guarded the reputation fiercely and since I later went on to the grammar school I know it to be true.