First Grammar school to open in 50 years

TomandJerry · Oct 15, 2015

"The government’s controversial decision to approve the first selective school in 50 years looks set to prompt a series of similar applications for “satellite” developments to existing grammar schools.

A school in Buckinghamshire is likely to be one of the first to use the decision to approve a new 450-pupil grammar school in Sevenoaks, Kent, to push forward plans for a similar extension on a satellite site."

Good, bad or ugly?

http://www.theguardian.com/education/2015/oct/15/grammar-school-decision-likely-to-spur-more-bids-for-satellite-developments

mr sheen · Oct 15, 2015

My kids are both at grammar school. Virtually every child there has had private tuition. It's a cheaper alternative to private education. There are around 2% of kids getting pupil premium, so it's not really a tool for social mobility.

Goldstone1976 · Oct 15, 2015

It's not a "new" grammar school; it's an "annex". It's just that the corridor is 10 miles long. *nods*

tinycowboy · Oct 15, 2015

mr sheen said:
My kids are both at grammar school. Virtually every child there has had private tuition. It's a cheaper alternative to private education. There are around 2% of kids getting pupil premium, so it's not really a tool for social mobility.

I have one at a grammar, my second passed his 11+ yesterday. In my eldest son's year, I would guess that between 20%-40% of the boys went to a private school beforehand. I agree with you that it is not a tool for social mobility. The Sevenoaks case, it seems to me - having known one of the people behind it when I lived in Sevenoaks - was about having a plan B if you had a son and he didn't get into Judd/Skinners' (in Tonbridge/Tunbridge Wells) or St Olave's (in Orpington): none of the affluent commuters in Sevenoaks wanted to send their children to the local comprehensive. Sevenoaks was terrible for people having private tutors - part of the reason we moved was that we didn't want our children to have to have extra lessons after school. The problem is that those who scrape through after tutoring can then really struggle once they're in the grammar school - effectively, they've taken the place of somebody else who could have benefitted from it, but who couldn't afford/didn't want to employ a tutor.

beorhthelm · Oct 15, 2015

interesting view there tinycowboy. seems to me that rather than create equality of education, the half cocked ending of grammar schools has created a series of state schools for the semi-affluent middle classes. why send the kids private when one can send them to the grammar? comprehensive education has failed several generations, yet the left wouldn't acknowledge this and sort of tried to correct the error on grammars with the academy. grammars branching out certainly cant hurt education standards.

Bakero · Oct 15, 2015

Why wait until they're 11? Let's just start segregating kids at birth.

Moshe Gariani · Oct 15, 2015

tinycowboy said:
I have one at a grammar, my second passed his 11+ yesterday. In my eldest son's year, I would guess that between 20%-40% of the boys went to a private school beforehand. I agree with you that it is not a tool for social mobility. The Sevenoaks case, it seems to me - having known one of the people behind it when I lived in Sevenoaks - was about having a plan B if you had a son and he didn't get into Judd/Skinners' (in Tonbridge/Tunbridge Wells) or St Olave's (in Orpington): none of the affluent commuters in Sevenoaks wanted to send their children to the local comprehensive. Sevenoaks was terrible for people having private tutors - part of the reason we moved was that we didn't want our children to have to have extra lessons after school. The problem is that those who scrape through after tutoring can then really struggle once they're in the grammar school - effectively, they've taken the place of somebody else who could have benefitted from it, but who couldn't afford/didn't want to employ a tutor.

This is absolutely disgusting.

I do NOT blame the individual families involved. Good friends of Mrs G, who are very nice people, did exactly this tutoring to get into Grammar school stuff for their kids.

I DO blame this Tory government who seem determined to do everything they possibly can to turn back the clock and reduce social mobility.

The correlation between parental wealth and outcomes in this country is on an upward trend and government policy responses are completely inadequate. It is almost as if they pay lip service to the interests of the many but actually they don't really care.

Tom Bombadil · Oct 15, 2015

beorhthelm said:
comprehensive education has failed several generations, yet the left wouldn't acknowledge this and sort of tried to correct the error on grammars with the academy. grammars branching out certainly cant hurt education standards.

They don't acknowledge it because it's simply not true.

DavidinSouthampton · Oct 15, 2015

beorhthelm said:
interesting view there tinycowboy. seems to me that rather than create equality of education, the half cocked ending of grammar schools has created a series of state schools for the semi-affluent middle classes. why send the kids private when one can send them to the grammar? comprehensive education has failed several generations, yet the left wouldn't acknowledge this and sort of tried to correct the error on grammars with the academy. grammars branching out certainly cant hurt education standards.

Totally disagree. I and my wife both went to Grammar Schools. Our Children, now aged 33 and 31 both had a far better and more balanced education than we ever had. My wife, who is now a very senior manager in education (at Further Education Level) would maintain thaat the old grammar school system failed loads and loads of people who were deemed to be second class citizens at the age of 11 - bright, intelligent people who were dealt with appallingly and, for the most part, would have fared much better in the more recent education system..... although successive education ministers now seem to be intent on tipping us back in to the dark ages in terms of things to win votes among the ambitious middle classes - want a free school? here's unlimited money to do what you want and the Education department won't be checking up on you for the next 20 years. I exaggerate, but.......

tinycowboy · Oct 15, 2015

beorhthelm said:
interesting view there tinycowboy. seems to me that rather than create equality of education, the half cocked ending of grammar schools has created a series of state schools for the semi-affluent middle classes. why send the kids private when one can send them to the grammar?

This is pretty much exactly what has happened - a halfway house between a state school and a private school for the middle classes. I'm "encouraged" as a parent to contribute £10 a month by direct debit to help the school - quite a potential income stream if there are 1,000 pupils and the parents can afford it. When you see how grammars used to work in the 50s and 60s, there was a mix - boys and girls from the posh end of town mixing with boys and girls from the estates. I don't see that today, although, to be honest, I didn't see that much of it when I was at grammar school 30 years ago, although it's worse now. There is the additional downside that the comprehensives in a town with grammar schools generally perform considerably worse than comprehensives where there are no grammar schools because the high performers have all been pretty much filtered out of the comprehensives (using, say, GSCE results as a measure). I'm a product of a grammar school, and my kids go there, so I'm in no position to criticise without being hypocritical, but it doesn't seem to me to be a good solution to how to create a level educational playing field....

Notters · Oct 15, 2015

What's wrong with just having streaming in comprehensive schools?

tinycowboy · Oct 15, 2015

DavidinSouthampton said:
Totally disagree. I and my wife both went to Grammar Schools. Our Children, now aged 33 and 31 both had a far better and more balanced education than we ever had. My wife, who is now a very senior manager in education (at Further Education Level) would maintain thaat the old grammar school system failed loads and loads of people who were deemed to be second class citizens at the age of 11 - bright, intelligent people who were dealt with appallingly and, for the most part, would have fared much better in the more recent education system..... although successive education ministers now seem to be intent on tipping us back in to the dark ages in terms of things to win votes among the ambitious middle classes - want a free school? here's unlimited money to do what you want and the Education department won't be checking up on you for the next 20 years. I exaggerate, but.......

I'll defer to your opinion of grammar schools from 50-odd years ago, Dave, but I distinctly remember hearing different opinions on a documentary I saw on grammar schools - sounds like they may have been a mixed bag.

beorhthelm · Oct 15, 2015

DavidinSouthampton said:
... My wife, who is now a very senior manager in education (at Further Education Level) would maintain thaat the old grammar school system failed loads and loads of people who were deemed to be second class citizens at the age of 11 - bright, intelligent people who were dealt with appallingly.

i agree to that part of the issue, for those that should have been recognised to pass the 11 plus but couldn't for what ever reason. the problem is that the solution failed all the bright, intelligent people and the middling intelligent lumped together in a one size fits all bodge, not just those that failed the exam. we are not all of equal ability, and that must be recognised. as i gather the education systems have moved on, with more adaptive internal streaming. when i was at school they experimented with streaming, i got lumped into the middle maths group on account of poor language grades (i will never know why these were complementary), which limited my maths teaching and paper (so could only get a C max). so i can both appreciate the effects of the 11 plus (being judged on one exam year), but also let down by a system.

nicko31 · Oct 15, 2015

These Grammar schools turn into middle class ghettos.

I have a friend in Bucks who wants their kid to get into one. The whole thing is surrounded by a tutoring circus, and many tutors have their own entrance exam just to be tutored by them. You couldn't make it up...

mr sheen · Oct 15, 2015

I think Frank Field sums it up well here: https://twitter.com/georgeeaton/status/654581925064089600

Chicken Run · Oct 15, 2015

Notters said:
What's wrong with just having streaming in comprehensive schools?

Interesting point, when I went to Patcham Fawcett in the early 80's there was streaming in place, my youngest 2 children are both at High School and they don't do it now.

tinycowboy · Oct 15, 2015

beorhthelm said:
i got lumped into the middle maths group......which limited my maths teaching and paper (so could only get a C max). so i can both appreciate the effects of the 11 plus (being judged on one exam year), but also let down by a system.

Same happened to me with maths - once you're locked into the stream, it's pretty hard to get out, even if you get 90%+ in your internal school exams. Ironically I'm now an accountant, so I can't complain too much, although people still ask me about my maths A-level grade as it sticks out on my CV and I feel like I'm stretching the point a bit when I lay the blame on school streaming.

Honky Tonx · Oct 15, 2015

The argument that Grammar are selective and that some would not be in a position to send their children to one, seems to reflect the old Socialist argument that if my children can't yours should not either.

mr sheen · Oct 15, 2015

Wasn't the argument more if my children can, yours should also have the opportunity?

GT49er · Oct 15, 2015

Voroshilov said:
They don't acknowledge it because it's simply not true.

The failure of the comprehensive education revolution is glaringly obvious - whole generations who can't spell, do not understand grammar and punctuation, cannot perform simple mathematical calculations and know nothing of history (apart from the holocaust and the fact that we're all descended from wicked slave traders, and must therefore apologise to everyone about everything that's ever happened in the past).

Two of my three children went to grammar school - no private tuition involved, thank you very much; we weren't wealthy, or pushy, parents. The middle one was railroaded by the LEA into a sink school - they mistakenly clung to the pathetic belief that putting a few bright, well brought up kids into a sink school it would somehow make it a better school; it didn't. The difference it made to my kids' lives is clear to see.

I went to grammar school. Very pleased I did. Only thing wrong with the system (and this was obvious to me even then) was that the 11+ was too final. Within the grammar school we had A, B and C streams, and for the first two or three years, there was promotion and relegation, depending on results and performance. But......there was no such arrangement between the lower end of the grammar school; and the brightest in the secondary mod along the road; consequently, much of the C stream was made up of boys who didn't really want to go to school, didn't care about learning, but had just happened to pass their 11+. I'm certain that there would have been an equal amount in the top stream of the secondary mod who could have used those places much better if transfers at 12 or 13 had been allowed.

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