Selection in Education

ppbarrett Tue Jun 10, 2008 at 12:42:30 AM GMT Print-friendly version Facebook

Ever since David Blunkett said "I'm desperately trying to avoid the whole debate in education concentrating on the issue of selection when it should be concentrating on the raising of standards. Arguments about selection are a past agenda."(2000) our parties policy on the future of the existence of grammar schools seems to have taken a back-seat. Whilst I shall not argue that the regurgitation of this debate will be beneficial to the fortunes of the national party, but I wondered, as a new member to this site, what other members believe the next step (if there ever is one) on this issue should be.




I don’t intend to spell out my own thoughts, as they are confused and probably contradictory, but a brief summary would be this,

 

I don’t disagree with the Blunkett comment above – he raises an important issue regarding the priorities of our education policy – but nevertheless grammar schools still exist (although only in certain regions of the UK) and consequently there must be a debate regarding their future.

 

As a former grammar school pupil, I find it very hard to bring myself to oppose their existence. There is no doubt in my own mind that attending that school benefited me greatly, and I feel that I would not have received the same level of education in academia, but also in life, elsewhere (although I accept that this arbitrary, and I will never actually know). However, one thing struck me of the make-up of the other pupils at the school – most, if not almost all, were middle class. The school was based in a reasonably affluent area of South London, so it’s catchment-area included very few working class areas. Correct me if I am wrong but isn’t the primary purpose of the tri-partite system to undermine class and obliterate class distinction by making ‘quality’ education accessible to all (I do not mean that comprehensive schools do not offer ‘quality’ education as well, but grammar schools tend to fair better at OFSTED reports and league table scores). While at my time in that school, I saw very little evidence of this. As mentioned, the pupils there were majority middle class, many were privately tutored before sitting the entrance exams, and some even went to independent prep schools beforehand. The school did not break down class barriers, it seemed to only reinforce them. I do not claim to be omniscient with regards to grammar schools, but I understand that the case study of my school is essentially commonplace across most grammar schools across the country. By existing in almost solely middle class areas, by admitting pupils through a selective exam that they have pre-learnt by a paid tutor, access to grammar school quality education seems exclusive to the middle class, meaning the current system plays no part in creating equal opportunity or social mobility, nor does it undermine privilege. An exaggeration, but perhaps not too far off the mark, is that grammar schools offer middle class parents the opportunity not to pay for their child’s education – when pupils don’t get in, they are carted off to independent schools instead.

 

It strikes me that given the failures of the current system, that we are at a crossroads where we should consider making a long term decision. If we believe that grammar schools and selection are an appropriate tool to ‘oil the wheels’ of social mobility, should we not consider expanding the system to working class areas and making the entrance system fairer so that working class children are not excluded from the selection process? If we believe that the divisive nature of grammar schools is so repulsive, should we not be moving to close the system as swiftly as possible. At the moment, I see our education policy stuck in a rut, and the longer we stay there the longer these injustices go on.

 

Do you agree that despite the arguments for/against selection, the status quo is unacceptable?

 

If so, is there a future for selective education in Britain?

 

Apologies if this debate has already been sounded out on this site before, like I said, I’m new and interested!



tags: , , , (all tags)

Display: Sort:
Selection in Education | 15 comments (15 topical)

Re: Selection in Education (#1)

by otware on Tue Jun 10, 2008 at 02:03:49 AM GMT

I say that our schools need more internal streaming, and a real vocational alternative to GCSEs - preferably taught in the same institution - so as to give people who are not academically gifted a chance at an education that doesn't revolve around worthless 'key skills' and health & social care qualifications. The current system fails everybody, because the vocationally-minded are forced to be failures through the GCSE system, while they bring down the academic standards - also failing academically able students.

I experienced mixed ability classes at my school (and they were not as widespread as in many schools) - they were a total disaster. Foreign language lessons were held up by people who can barely read and write in English. The teachers spent more time trying to prevent acts of GBH than teach us French or German because these students have been turned into a problem by the failures of the Key Stage 3 system in schools.

I think it's about time people gave up the illusion that mixed ability works - it doesn't. Different people learn in different ways, different people have different skills. Forcing the same curriculum down every student's throat is a recipe for disaster, as we now see in the nation's skills shortage. I don't call it equality when the system fails so many people. 


Re: Selection in Education (#2)

by NorthernMonkey on Tue Jun 10, 2008 at 05:43:57 AM GMT

As a former grammar school pupil, I very much sympathise with what you say.

I certainly got a very good education from it, but as with you, it was overwhelmingly middle class. Most kids who went there would have gone to private school had grammar schools not been available.

So I'm a bit unsure as to whether selective education is a good thing or not. One thing I am certain of, as otware says, is that streaming is necessary in most subjects so people aren't held back or pushed too hard because of mixed abilities in the same class.


Re: Selection in Education (#3)

by orzr on Tue Jun 10, 2008 at 06:36:10 AM GMT

It has been shown very clearly that abolishing most grammar and direct grant schools has just increased the independent sector. Abolishing the remaining grammar schools would be no different. Some on the left fantasise about abolishing the independent sector but that would increase the size of the state sector by 8-10%, with a corresponding tax rise needed to pay for it. This tax rise would be borne by many more families than those whose children are currently privately educated. Does anyone want their taxes to go up to pay for educating children of well-off parents, leaving those parents with more money to spend?


Re: Selection in Education (#4)

by jkitleft on Tue Jun 10, 2008 at 09:52:40 AM GMT

I used to be in favour of grammers. The system I would favour now, is saying schools can only have 40% of their pupils eligable for free school meals, maximum.

The problem is that grammers and faith schools cream off middle-class kids. My worry that would be if we favoured my suggestion, middle-class parents would send their kids into the independent sector.

But many of our young criminals are victims of our mixed ability schools. 60% of those in YOI's, are completely illiterate. They should not be in mixed ability classes.


Re: Selection in Education (#5)

by e10rifles on Tue Jun 10, 2008 at 11:11:52 AM GMT

I went to a grammar and would abolish them tomorrow.

It was right in the middle of a poor area, full of sink estates, and what did it contribute? Nothing. Almost all of the students came from outside the local area. All it did was increase the "us and them" and the feeling of alienation among the local students towards the "haves". Anyone who truly thinks the 11-plus is or can ever be class-blind is living in a fantasy world.

And although grammars to better tham comprehensives in many cases, the corollary of grammars is secondary moderns, whatever you call them. And areas with selection do worse overall than their statistical neighbours without.

I can't believe it's even necessary to ask this question in this day and age. Maybe we should bring back child labour and leaving school at 13?


Re: Selection in Education (#6)

by otware on Tue Jun 10, 2008 at 11:35:48 AM GMT

I suppose you could argue that some people might be pro-grammar school because they allow parents to have a choice of what school their kids go to within the state sector. This choice agenda seems to be a Tory idea but has become a mjaor plank of pblic setor reform. So it is a legitimate question to pose in that context.

 


[ Parent ]

Re: Selection in Education (#7)

by e10rifles on Tue Jun 10, 2008 at 11:44:52 AM GMT

Well, Labour would do well to get rid of the so-called public sector reform programme and the choice agenda, but that would be too obvious and sensible.


[ Parent ]

Re: Selection in Education (#10)

by jkitleft on Tue Jun 10, 2008 at 05:20:06 PM GMT

It depends. Because waiting lists have come crashing down in hospitals, it allows choice. While the opposition between Labour and the Tories on the NHS may seem few and far between, their subtle differences open up a whole multitude of differences.

Labour's reform within the NHS is to say that people before an op. are consulted by their GP, on the choice of 5 hospitals, some private, some public. The Tories have suggested that the state shall contribute money to a private op. if the rest has been contributed by the person being operated on. While the second just helps duchesses, the first, I think is very much socialist. If my granny gets the same treatment as a duchess, and it is paid for by the state, it is not privatisation, but socialism. I am opposed to however, private sector internal involvement in the NHS. I don't think it would make much difference, but making a granny lie in a hospital bed in agony, when an op. can be conducted for the same cost, with no cost to her, while limiting waiting lists in the NHS, and all because of a queasyness about private healthcare, is not the right policy in my opinion.

But private sector involvement in the NHS is not right though. Expensive car parking, effects upon dentistry etc. I think we should work towards free parking, prescriptions, and sorting out dentistry.


Choice doesn't have to be unsocialist. Capitalism doesn't have to be served with a slice of cold turkey. Consider Thatcher's agenda. The right-to-buy was a good policy. But the scandal that Tories and Labour have let slide, is that the money raised by councils due to this policy, was not reinvested into housing, particuarly council housing. I agreed with the modernisation package for the unions. But that would have been the best time to introduce industrial democracy.

Her ending of state monopolies were right, but needed to be implemented differently. Water, Gas and Electricity should have been broken up into workers' and consumers' public interest companies. Telecommunications should have been broken up into regional co-operatives. Railways should have been broken up into smaller public companies with strong consumer representation.

It's hard to remember that there was too much centralisation post-war. There were income controls, price controls etc. The price of a pack of chocolate biscuits could be regulated. I actually think this is detrimental to socialism. Socialism should be about decentralisation. This doesn't have to be about lassez-fair deregulation. It can mean devolution, industrial democracy, consumers rights, and Fabian-style socialisation etc. 

We need to learn this for today. Post offices should be broken up into smaller co-operatives. Bus services, and perhaps air travel, as well as other transport companies should be required to have strong consumer representation. Amendments to privatised companies that I noted should be implemented. NATS should be co-operative. LU should then be brought in line with the other transport services. I don't care about other privatisations.

If Tote, or Channel 4 is privatised, I really couldn't care less. But I don't feel comfortable with getting the private sector to run the public sector under PPP's or PFI's. I don't feel comfortable with the privatisation of the probation services or prisons, although, I know the Howard League welcomes private companies running schemes to get young offenders working for them, to be rehabilitated, or allow for a fresh start, which I similarly welcome. 

I would never support privatised armies. I oppose shock-doctrine capitalism, noted by Naomi Klein's latest book. I believe though that capitalism can have a very human face. A noted example would be socialisation, or co-operatives. This could then set the course for a Democracy in the Workplace act. We should mandate for co-determination, although slightly, but not radically different in the public sector.


[ Parent ]

Re: Selection in Education (#8)

by bishophill on Tue Jun 10, 2008 at 12:20:45 PM GMT

It strikes me that everyone on this thread so far seems to agree that the education system should be centrally planned.  I think this is a mistake.


Re: Selection in Education (#9)

by CitizenAndreas on Tue Jun 10, 2008 at 03:46:39 PM GMT

What bits do you think shouldn't be? Curriculum? Examinations? Funding? At what level should such decisions be made?


[ Parent ]

Re: Selection in Education (#11)

by jkitleft on Tue Jun 10, 2008 at 05:21:45 PM GMT

True. It feels to me that if we were to have one area that could be saved from experimentation for the sake of experimentation, it would be education.


[ Parent ]

Re: Selection in Education (#12)

by doctordunc on Tue Jun 10, 2008 at 05:43:03 PM GMT

I fear I'm going to disagree with several of you, but... I had three years at a state grammar (my local area has yet to arrive in the 1960s, worst luck) and I would close them tomorrow.  Without mercy or the least regret.

I simply don't accept the argument that they're good schools.  Once you select, any exciting claims you might make about pass rates and league tables are irrelevant.  Do able children do just as well in comprehensive schools as in grammar schools?  Yes.  Do less able children to better in genuine, fair comprehensive schools or those schools that a local grammar turns into an effective secondary modern?  They do better at the comprehensive.  Therefore it's two ticks for comprehensive schools as far as I'm concerned.

And I'd like to challenge some of the other orthodoxies here.  Mixed ability teaching CAN and DOES work.  It doesn't always work.  It certainly isn't easy, or a panacea.  But I would like to see LESS banding in schools.  Any setting should be limited and very flexible.

The original rationale for selective education (and it is sometimes wheeled out for further banding within comprehensive education too, alongside some of the 'specialist' school stuff) is founded on a completely flawed, prehistoric concept of intelligence.  No test you can employ is going to put people into handy boxes of 'academic', 'technical' or 'practical'.  People do not develop at the same age, not all know what things they're going to find interesting and what things they're going to find excrutiating dull at handy ages for educational planners.

What would I change?  Make education serious earlier (leave primary school at 9); at the same time keep education general and integrated for longer (don't start secondary school till 13); have a good mix of 'academic' and 'vocational' elements for ALL, don't try and pigeonhole people (I wish someone had taught me how to wire a plug - I'd happily dispense with some of my useless knowledge about the effect of insufficient lagging on physics experiments, etc. in exchange for that).  Ensure the priority is to make every school an excellent school, rather than to turn successful schools into businesses where managers know nothing of education, and turn struggling schools into neurotic institutions desperately ticking boxes and jumping through hoops to stay out of special measures.

Education needs fairness and stability.  It DOESN'T need selection.


Re: Selection in Education (#13)

by jkitleft on Tue Jun 10, 2008 at 06:40:54 PM GMT

I do now agree about grammers, but is it fair to have children who have Mensa level IQ's, put with children who are bordering on illiterate?


[ Parent ]

Re: Selection in Education (#14)

by alexhilton on Tue Jun 10, 2008 at 06:53:10 PM GMT

There is a big difference between illiterate and unintelligent. If a young person has a poor academic record, either through their circumstances or due simply to delayed development, then why should they be thrown onto a scrap-heap and have their opportunities cut off?

And why would filtering the highest achievers away from lesser students benefit them? In real life they will have to contend with all manner of people.

I went to a Grammar and to a comprehensive school and I found at the Grammar some very unhappy people who had been coached intensively through the 11+.

They were the subject of a great deal of bullying, because of an elitist attitude inculcated in the pupils.

We cannot escape the fact that every single child needs a high standard of education and that if this is our aim, then we have to provide the resources to match. And those pupils experiencing difficulty in education require more resources, not less.


[ Parent ]

Re: Selection in Education (#15)

by doctordunc on Tue Jun 10, 2008 at 09:30:16 PM GMT

By 'put with' I'm assuming you mean 'taught in the same class as'?  I think to a large extent that depends on what's being taught, how it's being taught, what level, what age, etc.  It's worth bearing mind that some people with mensa level IQ (for what that's worth) are also bordering on illiterate, and some very specially gifted and talented young scholars are very poor at IQ tests.  Flexibility is key.

I appreciate it might depend on the subject that's being taught, but in those areas that require a lot of pupil-centred learning, and a large discursive element, then genuinely mixed ability teaching has very exciting possiblities.  There has been a lot of research into what teaching methods are the most effective in terms of deep learning.  I don't buy all the results of the research (I'm quite old-fashioned, really, and think lectures and books should feature much 'higher up the list' than most modern educational theorists), but it is quite compelling that discussion, peer educating and peer assessing are VERY effective methods for really stretching the learning of high flyers.  It is a method that only really presents itself in false, contrived ways in narrow bands, but has enormous possiblitiies in the mixed ability class.  Similarly pupils who are disengaged and resistant to learning have been shown by research to understand things better, and respond more positively, when things are explained to them by their peers, rather than just by the teacher.  As such, mixed ability learning has the potential to best serve the needs of both the high flyer and the student who's struggling.  All educational settings are hardest on those in the middle (those who are either coached into grammar schools and then struggle like mad, or feel held back in lower sets or secondary modern schools) - but in fact they can get the best of both worlds through mixed ability teaching.

Of course, it's idealistic and if discipline is poor then it becomes very difficult for teachers to effectively manage classrooms in the necessary ways to make this sort of education work (and I'm not sure you could make it work if you were trying to deliver the subject content of, say, GCSE Maths, or whatever).  But it is something to aspire to.

As for grammars generally.  Our current policy is unsustainable.  The referendum for parents is unfair - the referendum is only for parents from feeder schools, but in areas with grammar schools part of the problem is that there will always be one or two local primary schools where no (or very few) pupils ever get to the grammar school, and those parents are currently excluded from the ballot.


[ Parent ]

Selection in Education | 15 comments (15 topical)