I would say that my experience of that was pretty much supportive of that point of view. In any given subject the lower steam was treated very differently..much more time on the basics, and less of the high flying stuff..
Contrariwise it was a relief in the top stream when the one or two boys who simply didn't get it moved to a lower stream and we could get on without going over the basics three times ...
people aren't the same, and in terms of their ability to acquire a working knowledge of a subject they are anything but equal, and they need different treatment. Small classes and streaming deliver that, with decent teachers.
Sorry, missed that bit. Yes, it does... but it doesn't do mixed ability well. I have experience of that from the other end, since I deal with its output...
But is it really worth it. I live in central London and walk to work in
15 minutes. Sometimes I just stay at home and achieve more without all the interruption. Most of my colleagues live in in places like Cambridge and beyond, they spend a good part of their life either on trains or waiting for them. Academic salaries do not differ between locations by a factor of two - so what do they gain?
Best solved by removing all the subsidies for commuter travel. Then people, and their employers, could face up to the true cost of commuting. Smaller cities, with an even smaller hinterland. Livelier country towns maybe.
Would it be any better if it was two selective schools? Especially for the majority who would be selected against, and who you'd potentially still be dealing with?
I'm not really arguing against your choice of local school, I'm only arguing with the implied premise that grammar is necessarily better.
That was the theory behind secondary moderns. There was some merit to it as a theory - technically biased schools for example. Unfortunately what actually happened is they typically got the worse teachers (*) and the worse resources, giving a downward spiral.
Of course there are other forms of selection too - eg comps in 'nice' areas typically do quite well.
The net result is that certain schools definitely have a percieved lower status, and in selective areas, this includes the ones on the wrong side of the 11/12+. Why else do nice middle-class people send people who may be on the borderline of the selection criteria to a comp in a different area?
(* Who'd want to teach at a 'nasty' school? Far better to go to one where the kids actually listen, etc)
That attitude is as old as the hills - it's definitely not a recent thing.
Somehow people seem to confuse a school focussed on delivering a good education to those with a strong academic ability as being "better" and one which focusses on those with skills in other areas as "not as good".
The outcome was therefore to socially engineer an arrangement where everybody could be seen to get the same, whether it was suitable or not with the net result of a loss of more than a generation of opportunity in most areas. Thus education falls short based on trying to be all things to all men and not achieving excellence in any of them.
I love taking my 3 year old daughter to such places. She knows the basics of using a screwdriver (proper one, not toy), that the same size of bar in steel is heavier than aluminium - B&Q is an education in itself. But then she stands in the trolley and doesn't get in the way.
I agree that some people's abilities in driving buggies means that I hope not to meet them on the road in command of a bigger vehicle!
What does 'against' mean? Selection is for ability, not merit. Yes, it would be better; each school is able to work to the strengths of those for whom the selection (one way or the other) is made. I'm likely to have one child at each school, and that is probably correct.
Not sure whether you need to select into schools, rather than classes.. I got a scholarship to an extremely expensive private school, and the ability to pay is no guarantee of academic excellence..one could certainly see that..(the school was very happy to have half a dozen places a year funded by the county council. Made their Oxbridge entrance results look very good). Anyway yes,some kids did very well at maths, some did very well on the sports fields, and some just got their OK-ish results and went on to become (one presumes) normal sorts of people.
Provided the schools are not too BIG I think that a selective SCHOOL isn't a huge advantage..the trouble is when teh 'technical'; schools have huge workshops with exepensive machines and the academic schools hace huge labs with expensive equipment, the temptation to bang them together and make one super school is a bit too much for a politician..saves money..but I don;t think it makes a better school.
My wifes sister has recently somehow scraped up enough miney to send the eldest girl to a boarding school. To be honest, it will probably suit HER better tan any other school..the younger daughter though is a different animal..and will probably do well wherever she goes. Just point her at a subject she is interested in and she soaks it up like a sponge..
Its really tricky. Personally I don't think all schools can be all things to all children..there is a definite case for allowing schools to develop their own special areas of expertise and letting the parents have the choice. Provided the schools will accept them..I can recall two people in my year at my old school both of whom really shouldn't have been in that school. One was a really nice boy who wasn't very bright, but was a really decent sort of guy.,e struggled to justify the incredible cost of the thing - his parents were not well to do at all..they lived at a much lower standard of living to send him there..and it really was a bit wasted. Us 'scholars' who go free stationery and books used to 'lose' ours and give them to him, cos we knew his folks were hard up. The poor lad was forever feeling guilty about his lack of success, he wasn't artistic, he wasn't a sportsman and he wasn't an academic either. the school was wasted on him and a budern on him and his parents.
The other one was a glowering ill tempered spoilt Welshman with parents just rolling in Jaguars. A complete bastard, whose three main interests were Rugby, at which he was passably good, if inclined to violence, bullying other people, of whom I was briefly one, and train spotting. He was seldom in class. His ambition was to work for British Rail. I believe he achieved it and became a porter. For all his cash he would have been far far better off at a technical secondary modern,where his doubted affinity for large machinery would have allowed him to become something rather better than a porter.
YES! Ther was a time when academic success was the be all and end all of a parents ambitions for their child..misguided at best..and dangerous at worts.
Still today, we have this myth that everyone deserves or needs a university education, which is total bollocks. It doesn't even guarantee a decent job or salary anymore, and it costs bomb. All that has happened is that rather good 'polytechnics' that used to each vocational stuff and actually ensure a pretty decent salary and job, now teach bullshit subjects, and turn out parroting grads who think they are as good as anybody because they have memorised the course work and cheated at the practical course work and actually failed the exams, but still got a piece of paper..why, here is one in this very NG..;-)
The solution is not to simply give everyone a comfit in a caucus race so they feel like they have won..its to select on ability and aptitude and give them what they need, not what they (or their parents) think they want..
And I do not think it is possible for every educational establishment to be optimal for all possible pupils, no. So in principle you have to accept selective schools, as well as streamed classes..
Whether one should call them grammar schools or not, is a moot point though.
Certainly parents now seem to want schools that select on ethnicity and religious backgrounds..
I think the whole thing is a hot potato of the highest order, and that parents should be given the fees as vouchers, and allowed to negotiate with private or partially funded schools that dictate their own terms..and just maintain an inspectorate that guarantees a minimum standard of the basics, and freedom from the grosser forms of religious, ethnic, and class indoctrination.
In other words its bad enough with school masters and parents at war over what's best, without the chattering classes and politicians getting involved.
If people had the freedom to choose each other - school and pupil - then no one could say they were 'forced' to go to this or that school..except by their parents anwyay.
Change the perception..Its good to be as good as you can be, its stupid to try and be what you are not, and the right school to bring out YOUR potential is the thing to aim for.
But look at the implications.. you choose a school because they get good grades.. if you don't take into account what they started with you don't know if they are good at teaching or just take the kids that get A even if the teaching is poor. Just because a school gets good grades doesn't mean they can teach if they are allowed to get rid of kids that aren't going to pass.
I know of schools that do that as I know parents where they have been "advised" to take their kids elsewhere.
Couldn't agree more. Many university students are totally unsuited to a real degree course.
Absolutely. A good vocational course would have been *much* better, at a good polytechnic.
Exactly.
Why it it unacceptable to many people to select on academic ability, but perfectly acceptable to select on ability in (say) football? Specialist sports colleges don't get the same grief.
Actually, of ther two possible grammar schools (similar travelling distance), we selected the smaller one. Some disadvantages, but outweighed by advantages.
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