Stories + Views
End-of-term thoughts……
Sometimes, the terms we use or the terms we have foisted upon us – even by the most well meaning writers and commentators – need a little bit of deconstruction.
Take the piece in today’s Education Guardian , part of a long running serial following two sets of pupils over several years in selective Kent.
The pupils are now in their second year at secondary school, and the on-line headline reads:
‘Comprehensive and grammar school pupils talk about year 8.’
And then again, within the stand first, we are told:
‘Two of the children from St Saviour’s were off to a grammar and three to a non-selective high school.’
I suspect most readers of these apparently simple descriptors won’t think twice about them. But they should. They really should. For here, in the ordinary language of the everyday mainstream media, is lodged a gross conceptual inaccuracy; namely, that any school within the same administrative area (in this case, Kent county) as a grammar school can be considered a comprehensive. How can it be, when it has already had its most supposedly ‘able’ – and certainly its most affluent – children creamed off at the age of eleven?
Similarly, to describe a school, which, by definition, contains those who are considered to be less ‘clever’ or capable of high achievement as ‘non -selective’ is also a complete nonsense. Such ‘non-selective’ schools are, of course, the by-product of the most sophisticated selection.
So let’s speak plainly here. Kent – like Buckinghamshire, like Lincolnshire – still operates a system of grammars and secondary moderns. Nowadays the latter have simply been renamed comprehensive or academies or high schools but they remain secondary moderns: the one kind of school universally rejected by parents from the mid sixties onwards when comprehensive education first began to be introduced in this country.
Yet secondary moderns, in effect, remain in place in places like Kent, and the crude and class bound division of children, now obscured by all sorts of pseudo positivist language, has been as surely and swiftly and unjustly achieved as it was in the mid 1940s. So, it’s not that surprising either that Kent’s own director of education recently declared the county to have one of the lowest social mobility rates in the country.
This subtle shift, this use of language itself to obscure the real politics of education, while furthering inequality, is just one of the many reasons that the term ‘comprehensive’ is so fundamentally misunderstood, and misused ( and knowingly so, by the political right) in this country.
At the same time, genuine comprehensives are not called by their proper name either. Mossbourne Academy, in Hackney, is only ever talked of as a victory over comprehensive education by the academy movement: another piece of illogical nonsense. Mossbourne, for all its idiosyncrasies, is proof that we can educate all our children – of whatever class or ethnic background or supposed ability level – under one roof, until late adolescence. (In fact, I think we at the LSN should now officially rename it Mossbourne comprehensive.)
So: next time your eye glides over the use of these supposedly easy and certain terms, stop and think about what is being assumed or asserted. Or indeed, what is not being said…….
Other tags
Buckinghamshire, comprehensive, comprehensives, grammars, Kent, Lincolnshire, Mossbourne, secondary modern, The GuardianRelated posts
Comments, replies and queries
Reply
Yes I do agree . It’s a tragedy for many children in England that education is so elitist.
The terms to describe the different kinds of schools that exist in the State system do little to help people understand the true significance of what is on offer.
I noticed, too, that the terms ‘skill’ and ‘profession’ were blurred by someone on the radio yesterday , a Govt speaker on education, I think, who was suggesting that young people need schools geared to trades when considering their future profession. This seems a reasonable view for most people . Everyone wants a good carpenter, plumber etc etc. Wasn’t this part of the attitude which helped to establish the Secondary Modern system in the 50s, that failed so many young people and helped to accentuate social divisions-then and now ?
The 60′s helped to ‘open the doors’ to inclusive,comprehensive educaton.
A big YES to Mossbourne comprehensive.
Lincolnshire is a selective county and one of the alleged reasons for the County Council recommending that all schools become academies was that it feared the County’s “secondary moderns” would struggle to reach the 2015 benchmark of 50% of pupils achieving 5 A*-C including Maths and English. In other words, Lincolnshire County Council wanted to off-load schools deemed to be “failing” but the reason for their “failure” is the Council’s own selective system.
Research Lincs (May 2011) wrote about the challenges to Lincolnshire posed by the Coalition Government. These apply to all selective counties especially rural ones.
1 The rural nature of the county means that secondary provision is spread across many, relatively small, secondary schools. Such isolation and a selective system make it challenging to provide pupils of varying ability with a broad curriculum.
2 The increased emphasis on academic over vocational courses and the EBac measure increase the challenge for some schools in a selective authority.
3 The impact of the Wolf Report into vocational education could impact on the ability of secondary modern schools to retain pupils and threaten their financial ability.
http://www.research-lincs.org.uk/UI/Documents/JSNA%20Educational%20Attainment%20-%20KS4%20Template_Publication%20Version%20v1_2011-05-27.pdf
This is more an issue of rurality than selectivity.
About a quarter of children in Lincolnshire attend a Grammar school, which means that 75% attend their local High/Secondary school as you will. This will slightly increase the rurality issue which is particularly bad in Lincolnshire which is a huge space with not much in it. The main issue I can see for Lincs is cost re transport, because with 14 Grammar Schools they are going to be very widely spread and some children may have to travel a long way. Lincolnshire “Secondaries” are not like the old Secondary Schools IMLE – the ones I’ve visited were much like anywhere else, save for a slight ‘depression’ caused by losing their top quarter.
No it’s not. In Lincolnshire RPA, transport, lack of places in grammar schools for post 16 and lack of courage to speak out are just some of the factors exacerbating divisions brought about by the 11+. It’s about time pusillanimous ‘educationalists’ grew a backbone.
pusillanimous = “lacking courage or resolution; cowardly; faint-hearted; timid.”
Are the “pusillanimous ‘educationalists’” perhaps males made of sun dried grass Guest?
“For here, in the ordinary language of the everyday mainstream media, is lodged a gross conceptual inaccuracy; namely, that any school within the same administrative area (in this case, Kent county) as a grammar school can be considered a comprehensive.”
http://www.ullswatercc.co.uk/sixth-form/prospectus.php
Over 100 students going to university from year 13? Why can it not be considered to be a comprehensive school Melissa?
Rebecca – the 2011 cohort at Ullswater Community College in Penrith had an intake comprising 19% high attainers, 62% middle attainers and 19% low attainers. That is indeed a comprehensive intake. 4,7% of the school’s intake are FSM. 90% of the high attainers at Ullswater reached the benchmark 5 A*-C including Maths and English.
At the neighbouring Queen Elizabeth’s Grammar School, Penrith, the 2011 cohort comprised 91% high attainers and 9% middle attainers. There were, of course, no low attaining pupils. 1.7% of the school’s intake were FSM. 97% of the grammar school cohort reached the benchmark.
On paper, then, it would appear that high attainers at the grammar school fared better than their equally qualified peers at the comprehensive. However, the high attainers at the grammar would have comprised the whole of the ability range among high attainers (ie those who just about achieved Level 5 at age 11 and those who achieved above Level 5 with ease). It is likely that the high attainers at the comprehensive did not contain the same proportion of exceptionally high fliers because they would have been creamed off to the grammar.
The success of pupils in non-selective schools in selective counties does not negate Melissa’s argument that such schools are disadvantaged because they exist alongside selective schools if only because of the perception that grammar schools are better than other schools. Nick Gibb, the school’s minister, said that grammar schools represent the best in the English state system – it follows, therefore, that the others are regarded as second-best.
Rebecca – Melissa is making a wider point that in selective areas non-selective schools are at a disadvantage. This holds even if the non-selective school has a comprehensive intake. This is the case in Lincolnshire where Bourne Grammar School is in the same town as a non-selective school with a comprehensive intake. There is even a nearby comprehensive, the Deepings School, where the ability range in the 2011 cohort had four times as many high attainers as low attainers (39% high attainers, 10% low attainers).
However, the high-attaining pupils at the non-selective school are unlikely to have the same proportion of exceptionally high attaining pupils as Bourne Grammar because these have been creamed off.
There is also the problem of perception. In selective areas it is inevitable that the grammar schools will be perceived as first-rate and excellent (don’t their results prove it?) and the others are viewed as second-rate (see post above). There is kudos is children gaining a place at the grammar school (just listen to parents discussing it). The Minister for Skills and Lifelong Learning, John Hayes (Lincolnshire MP for South Holland and the Deepings), was so chuffed when his son passed the 11+ that he announced it in the House of Commons.
“There is also the problem of perception. In selective areas it is inevitable that the grammar schools will be perceived as first-rate and excellent (don’t their results prove it?) and the others are viewed as second-rate (see post above).”
That’s certainly not the case for all students and all parents despite the ludicrous culture of league tables and the abysmal inspection environment in which we live. We should address the ludicrous culture of league tables and the quality of our inspection system. Melissa should address her prejudices against schools like Ullswater which make her unable to see how good they are.
Rebecca – you are right that not all students and their parents view non-selective schools in a poor light. I also do not. However, the perception is that grammar schools are best. I know that’s not correct. You know that’s not correct. And so do the parents of high-attaining pupils who deliberately choose to send their child to a non-selective school in a selective area.
This perception needs to be countered as often and as loudly as possible. However, there is a growing “push” for more grammars (hence the establishment of satellite grammars or the increase in grammar academy’s PAN). This is backed up by vociferous campaigns in the media, right-wing politicians and given tacit agreement by publishers and private tutors (lots of money to be made from parents anxious about the 11+). The results of counties like Lincolnshire are trumpeted as “proof” that selection works but no-one mentions that the gap between the advantaged and disadvantaged in selective counties tends to be wider than in non-selective counties.
Unfortunately, in places like Lincolnshire there is, as I said, the perception that grammars are first-rate and the rest are not – and consequently the pupils who attend the latter are not-so-bright and their teachers are second-rate.
Surely it depends what you mean by ‘best’. In terms of wanting the best for your children, yes, but overall no.
But this applies throughout the country. I live in a very rural area. Our local high school was for many years appalling, despite having an intake almost entirely from rural villages (biggest catchment school came from a village with a population < 2000) and on paper having good exam results (about 70% 5A-C). It now has a complete new management and is much better.
Contrastingly, I spent some time in the local 'appalling' school (5A-C pass rate about (10-15% on average) and I thought it was really good – well run, dedicated staff. But they were drawing their children from rough estates with lots of broken families and had many pupils who could not speak English and a lot of those social problems led to underachievement.
Objectively externally the second school was a much better school. From an analytical point of view it was no contest, the low scoring school wiped the floor with the higher scoring school.
However, very few parents given a choice between the two would select it, and I wouldn't either, because, despite the shambolic nature of the school with the better results the individual outcome for my child would have been better.
(She went to an independent in the end which I could just about afford. If I hadn't been I would have clubbed together with a couple of other parents who carted their child daily to a school 20 miles away which wasn't full for geographical reasons, and I also considered forming a home schooling cooperative. A lot of parents didn't want their child to go to the successful school either)
Rebecca – you have misunderstood Melissa’s position. She isn’t prejudiced against non-selective schools in selective areas. She is criticising a system which inevitably creams off the highest-ability children into one type of school and then judges other schools with a wide ability range against them.
The non-selective schools may provide an excellent education but when parents judge schools on their headline exam results then schools with a selected intake will always seem better (more of that later). The Insitute of Fiscal Studies produced a report last year that found that a school’s results are largely governed by their intake. That’s not to say schools can’t make a difference – but grammar schools will always have a higher headline pass rate than other schools and it’s unfair to compare the two.
Janet the high attainers at Ullswater have almost entirely deliberately chosen to go there.
Why would they do that if they are going to be disadvantaged by doing so?
I suspect there are many aspects of situations like these into which Melissa and many others are lacking insight. The most obvious is, of course, that you have a community of teachers at the grammar school who have been able to develop their skills as teachers to a very high level without every having had to learn to teach very challenging classes. There are many great teachers at the grammar school who do wonderful things – for example the head of maths runs RI materclasses for maths to which all the children in the county who are gifted in maths can go.
History tells us that many teachers from grammar schools do not cope with the transition to comprehensive teaching. QUEGS (the grammar school) would never be a comp – it is too small, so massive new build would be needed to accommodate the change which would be entirely for the pleasure of idealists like Melissa and completely unrelated to what anyone here wants. At present in Penrith students have two very good schools. Changing that ranks so far off the bottom of the scale in a county which is facing many very real and very serious issues which desperately and urgently need to be addressed and for which there is no resource.
Education in Cumbria has been relentlessly crippled by being on the tail end of the receiving whiplash of every idealist government agenda which pays no attention to and allows no resource for dealing with reality. The last thing we need is yet another one.
Mmmm…..
The reason Mossbourne does so well is that it explicitly rejects the nostrums peddled by LSN.
For instance, Mossbourne does not accept the LSN fatalism about prior attainment. If kids arrive from primary with level 3, they get a hand up level 4 or 5 PDQ. The LSN approach is to shrug and say ‘outcomes are determined by intakes’.
Mossbourne also rejects the LSN favoured dippy hippy teaching styles, preferring a school culture and behaviour code that Allan Beavis says ‘harks back to the 1950s’.
The reason Mossbourne does well is because it has shed loads of money other schools can only dream of which make it possible for it to be like the Eton of state schools in London.
Last night at the RSA Jo Shuter gave a much more relevant account of how secondaries in challenging areas make a difference. I hope the video/audio will be up soon.
http://www.thersa.org/events/audio-and-past-events/2012/is-education-the-answer-to-social-mobility
Rebecca – thanks for the link. I notice that the blurb says, “Nick Clegg placed an emphasis on what he termed the “great rift in our education system” between our best schools, most of which are private.”
When politicians make ignorant remarks like this ie that most of “our best schools” are private, I begin to despair. Don’t their advisers tell them that the OECD* found that while private schools globally outperform public (ie state) schools (and in UK to a wider margin than most) the position is REVERSED when socio-economic background is factored in (and in the UK the gap between state and private is wider than most other countries). In other words, UK state schools are doing a better job than private schools when socio-economic factors are considered.
As the Institute of Fiscal Studies found last year that a school’s results are largely dictated by its intake. It’s not defeatist to say that a school with an advantaged intake is going to perform better than a school in a disadvantaged area which is dogged by a large number of social problems. It’s not the “soft bigotry of expectations” to say that a school with a large number of high attainers is going to get better results than a school with an intake skewed towards the bottom end. Teachers in these schools work heroically to make a difference (the Education Endowment Fund found that many below-floor schools in England were outstanding and doing a good job in difficult circumstances) but as long as schools are judged merely by their headline benchmark figures then these below-floor schools will be judged as failures.
*http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/33/8/46624007.pdf (page 13)
Rebecca – I obviously did not make myself clear in my opening post. To point out that selection still exists in certain counties in England, in pretty much exactly the same way that it existed in the post war period, and to then point out that our language should reflect political truths, does not in any way cast criticism on those schools that have to operate within this unfavourable and unjust climate.
There are many schools in the selective areas, and indeed within parts of our inner cities – where covert selection produces pretty similar results – see the 2010 Barnardo’s report for details of the way that ‘good schools’ find ways to lock out poorer children – that do a fantastic job. And yes, indeed, they do take some higher attaining children.
My point was much simpler: how can one in any seriousness call a school genuinely ‘comprehensive’ when it is forced to operate within a highly selective system? It can’t be done.
Melissa – the converse is also true. How can a school claim to be comprehensive when its ability range is heavily skewed towards the top end? The London Oratory School, for example, describes itself as admitting boys from across London without reference to ability but the 2011 GCSE cohort had 71% high attainers and only 1% low attainers. Its admission criteria makes no mention of children with statements and high priority is given to practising Catholics. The criteria even states that it will not award a place to a non-Catholic if “it would thereby be unable to offer a place to a suitable Catholic applicant.” I wonder if its admission criteria is against the new Admissions Code?
Other so-called comprehensives which are heavily skewed towards the top end are the majority of CTCs or ex-CTCs. Only two can really claim to have a comprehensive intake (as measured by the 2011 GCSE cohort): Djanogly City Academy, Nottingham, and the Leigh Technology Academy. The Thomas Telford CTC had 67% high attainers and only 1% low attainers in its 2011 cohort, and Harris City Academy had 56% high attainers and only 4% low attainers.
It would appear, then, that even in supposedly non-selective areas, there is covert selection being practised which the new Admission Code was supposed to prevent. Unfortunately, the deadline for appealing against 2012/13 Admission Codes has passed (30 June). I think appeals should still be allowed where there is a clear breach of the code.
http://www.london-oratory.org/tlos/htdocs/content.asp?cat=8&sub=105&sec=107
Janet
I doubt if the London Oratory is in breach of the admissions code as it is clearly a faith school and therefore allowed to give preference to members of its faith if oversubscribed.
The small number (1%) of low attainers is interesting. Do Catholic primary schools generally tend to produce more high attainers and fewer low attainers than other primary schools? If so, this is presumably because their teaching is better as primaries aren’t selective.
“Do Catholic primary schools generally tend to produce more high attainers and fewer low attainers than other primary schools? If so, this is presumably because their teaching is better as primaries aren’t selective.”
Ricky do you have no insight at all in to the catholic communities in many areas of the UK? I suspect not. It’s hard to know where to start….
Melissa – I didn’t want my post which mentioned the skewed intake at London Oratory to be too long so I didn’t enlarge on the school’s admission criteria which I thought might be in breach of the Admissions Code. The Code says admission authorities must NOT:
“give priority to children on the basis of any practical or financial support parents may give to the school or any associated organisation, including any religious authority” and
“prioritise children on the basis of their own or their parents’ past or current hobbies or activities (schools which have been designated as having a religious character may take account of religious activities, as laid out by the body or person representing the religion or religious denomination)”
While the activities listed under Notes on Catholic Practice would be allowed under “religious activities as laid down by the body…”, I think that involvement in parish activities (eg altar serving, cleaning, flower arranging) would probably be against the injunction not to give priority to children who have given practical support to a religious authority as these are not listed in the Code of Canon Law. I do not think that flower arrangement is something which all Catholics must do as part of practising their faith.
In any case, the admission criteria for London Oratory don’t mention children with a statement. The Admissions Code says:
“All children whose statement of special educational needs (SEN) names the school must be admitted.”
The full Admissions Code 2012 is here:
http://media.education.gov.uk/assets/files/pdf/s/school%20admissions%20code%201%20february%202012.pdf
I remember when I had my son I had a really long labour. But there was this local midwife who said that labour doesn’t last more than 12 hours. I asked her how she calculated when labour started and her method included the proviso that it wasn’t more than 12 hours before you gave birth….
So the fact that 14 hours before I had my son I was 6cm gone and had been contracting for 3 days clearly wasn’t labour. That was pre-labour pains.
If you define a ‘true comprehensive school’ as being a school which has not got a grammar schools with overlapping catchments then clearly it is indeed the case that if there is a comprehensive school which has a grammer school which overlaps its catchment then it is not a ‘true comprehensive school’. Why on earth anyone would want to bother working with such a definition is beyond me. There is not school which caters perfectly for absolutely everyone no matter what their interests and needs Melissa.
We need all our children to have access to very good schools like Ullswater which will not cap their potential to achieve. We need parents to move on from having very narrow view about what is a good education for their child. League tables and Ofsted when it is behaving badly are big barriers to that. A well configured regulator would reliably be an asset to that process.
We don’t live in a perfect world. We never will. Please can we try and address the things which aren’t working and are causing huge problems rather than trying to pursue ideal worlds? Please?
Selection isn’t usually covert (apart from religious schools).
It’s usually done by house prices and ownership. I’m not convinced this system is any better in practice than the 11 plus, even though it is easier to defend.
So why don’t you just fix bad schools rather than worrying about the good ones. Stop analysing the social profile and just work on the kids at hand.
You = Melissa?
One point that’s been missed in the comments so far is the proportion of children eligible for free school meals in different schools. Just over 2% of grammar school pupils are eligible for free school meals compared with a national average of about 16%. So grammar school aren’t quite the engines of social mobility they are deemed to be.
This also applies to those schools deemed comprehensive who nevertheless have an intake skewed towards the top end. The London Oratory, for example, has 6.3% of its pupils eligible for FSM, but the proportion of FSM pupils in Hammersmith and Fulham is 36%. In Bristol, the John Cabot Academy, an ex-CTC praised by Mr Gove in his letter to the Education Committee on 14 May 2012, has 7.5% of its pupils eligible for FSM – the average for Bristol in 22.5%.
The same is true of free schools. Figures deposited in the House of Commons Library in April 2012 show that in 20 of the 24 free schools opened in 2011, the percentage of children claiming FSM is below that of the local authority in which they are situated.
It would appear, then, that grammar schools, free schools and even some schools deemed comprehensive are not enrolling the disadvantaged children that it is claimed that they help.
http://www.kerrymccarthymp.org/news/westminster_news/news.aspx?p=1091024
Janet
That is plain nonsense. Just because free schools are not replicating the problem of the sink schools they have come into being to address, does not mean they are not helping the disadvantaged. I seem to remember that you yourself once quoted an OECD study that showed disadvantaged children did badly when educated with a high proportion of other disadvantaged children and much better in a more balanced school situation. So, a school like WLFS, for example is doing positive good by having 25% FSM rather than 35%.
“So, a school like WLFS, for example is doing positive good by having 25% FSM rather than 35%.”
It’s possible it could be but that depends on what’s happening to the other 10% Ricky – doesn’t it? If their provision is being carefully and coherently planned there could be overall benefits. But if it isn’t as LA planning is being trashed by central intervention and lack of funding then it’s not only the 10% who will be disadvantaged, it’s all the children in the other schools. So it’s likely you would actually be improving things for a few while making things much worse for many more.
No, Rebecca…
The 25% FSM attending WLFS would, if WLFS did not exist, be adding to the burden carried by other local schools. Since they already have too many FSM pupils for comfort, and since some of them have so many they frighten away the middle class, they risk entering a cycle of decline where they struggle to establish viable top sets and so on. WLFS not only take a sizeable number out of that dysfunctional cycle and give them a decent education, they also reduce the scale of the challenge faced by the other local schools – thus contributing to the good of all.
I’m not sure about that. I don’t know what the stats say, but others will. My impression of the West London Free School is that it is drawing children from schools way out of the borough and as the FSM stat shows, in effect, creaming off a higher proportion of better off children from other schools across London. I know children who travel for over an hour each way to reach the West London Free School.
“Just because free schools are not replicating the problem of the sink schools they have come into being to address”
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
How did I not notice that howler the first time I read that post?
The Free Schools policy – which was design to improve education by encouraging children to move away from schools to let their local schools fail and naturally close was a policy which was designed to address sink schools. Ha didi ha didi ha didi ha ha ha *ironic laughter dies out in horror at the ignorance of the statement.*
A foolish and jaundiced attitude, Rebecca.
Take a look at the Reach Academy, Feltham. This is a free school started by an idealistic group of entrepreneurs and teachers looking for a disadvantaged area where they could do some real good. The Greenwich Free School is in many ways similar. Other equally idealistic proposals will come forward next year. You have to admit that even Ms Birbalsingh’s Michaela Community School was aimed at the most disadvantaged, not the comfortably off wanting to insulate their offspring from poor folk.
Free Schools offer a chance to poor parents, who cannot use economic power to move into the catchment area of a good school, to find an alternative to the often hopeless schools that tend to be all that’s on offer in the less well off districts of larger towns and cities.
Whilst it may be an aspiration that free schools offer an alternative to parents living in poor areas to poorly performing schools this doesn’t appear to be what is happening in practice as those free schools that are open appear not to be serving that particular demographic, nor focused in areas where other schools are poor, nor indeed providing school places where they are most needed.
Sarah
There are only a very few secondary free schools open yet. 17 out of 24 in the first wave were primaries and a number of the others (Batley, Sandbach, Maharishi) were formerly independent schools joining the state funded sector, with their intakes already established or a former middle school converting to secondary.
Off the top of my head, I can think of only three ‘start-up’ secondary free schools –
WLFS, which has 23% FSM, King’s Science Academy, Bradford – 25%F SM and Bristol Free School, 10% FSM.
That puts Bristol as the only one with lower than average (16%) FSM.
There may be another…..?
“A foolish and jaundiced attitude, Rebecca.”
I fully understand that being even vaguely critical of Michael Gove’s policies leads not only to you being fired from any work funded by the DFE and also to you finding that your consultancy bills for work already complete remain unpaid by those who are currying favour with Gove and you going on the hit list of those who will not be employed by the recruitment consultants who are under strict instructions not to fire anyone with insight into education and instead to hire only those who understand they are there to do what Michael Gove wants without question Ricky.
So if I wanted to protect my government funded work or I was looking for any my comments would indeed be foolish. But I’ve already been fired from my government funded work under this regime and I would rather leave state education altogether than be part of implementing Gove’s policies because they are so catastrophically ignorant.
So your attitude towards me seems rather like someone saying that it is foolish to criticise the Nazi regime in 1936. Of course it is. But if you don’t you lose your soul.
Remarkably I am not jaundiced by this. I think I have the wonderful people around me and the deep freedom of being able to speak the truth to thank for that.
Ricky. The fact that independent schools were allowed to retain their previous intakes made a mockery of the aspiration for these schools to serve a broader demographic. This was essentially handing wealthy people a bonus rather than giving the most disadvantaged a hand-up. And the appropriate comparison is not with a national average – it’s with the average proportion in the local area since these schools are supposed to be serving a local area. On that measure, how many are serving the most disadvantaged in their community?
“I fully understand that being even vaguely critical of Michael Gove’s policies leads not only to you being fired from any work funded by the DFE and also to you finding that your consultancy bills for work already complete remain unpaid by those who are currying favour with Gove”
This is the same deluded individual who thinks she has been targeted by Israeli intelligence and that many long standing Labour supporting TES posters are paid agents of Gove, for committing the heinous crime of disagreeing with her. No matter than those posters have been around posting anti-Conservative views since before Gove even became an MP.
I read your posts on the HMI. They were nasty and vindictive towards a named individual. They opened up the TES to prosecution. Despite umpteen friendly warnings that this wasn’t a good idea you continued to post in that manner.
Any employer is going to view those with some disquiet. “Very unprofessional” was the kindest comment I heard about them.
Your view that anti Gove people are somehow targeted is fatuous. There are umpteen threads here criticising him or his policies. The TES is, despite your fantasy, chock a block full of them. Even the Tories on the forum criticise him.
You are responsible for your own mess. You do not listen, you do not engage, you do not take responsibility for your own actions, you are totally unable to empathise with anyone else, and you blame everything wrong in your life on everyone else, engaging in tortuous improbabilities and outright fantasy to do so.
The fact that independent schools were allowed to retain their previous intakes made a mockery of the aspiration for these schools to serve a broader demographic. This was essentially handing wealthy people a bonus
Heavens above, sarah, what are you saying? Are you seriously suggesting that free education should be means-tested? Or that better off children should be thrown out of their schools part way through their education?
Sarah has a point. Many private schools are struggling – some round here have merged. Some parents have decamped to our local state boarding school which you can get into as a boarder for what a day education normally costs (about £10k).
If the school cannot continue to operate due to lack of funds then perhaps it could be closed and reopened as a Free School.
However, no, the pupils education should not be continued. What the process does otherwise is divert public money to private education.
I have no problem with independent education and have used it for my own children but it should not receive government funding directly or indirectly (though it is often quoted, the actual tax benefits of charitable status are exaggerated)
Entertaining thread here re the Moorlands Private School that converted to a Free School. Head teacher appears to be unhappy with his lot under D of E control and has resigned and slunk off to start up his own private school to serve the miffed parents who expected preservation of the status quo.
http://www.localschoolsnetwork.org.uk/2012/07/gagging-clause-prevents-departing-free-school-head-from-commenting-further/
Why is it not possible to have an excellent successful , but organised system of education for all children, when there are so many examples of educational excellence that we are able draw from?
Seems to be TMI in these posts particularly on FSM .
Has anyone looked at the thread in Mellisa’s post on social mobility?.Also Chris Cook in his article On New Grammar Schools Ref. ft.com ?
Surely by the definition of comprehensive school used there are no comprehensive schools at all in the country? Any “comprehensive” which has within its catchment area children of the right age to attend but who are at selective schools, whether state grammar or independent (or even those which select on the basis of faith) is not comprehensive because it has an intake skewed by the competition with such schools.
Rather than fixate on the terminology so as to rename comprehensives in Kent as secondary moderns why not just focus on whether those schools are good and whether they can be improved? By all means retain your belief that they would be improved further by having a greater proportion of the highest attaining 11 year olds (and that the outcomes for all including those currently at the grammars would be improved by selection going completely) but why the interest in a pejorative use of secondary modern as a term for such schools? Or, the corollary of co-opting a type of school which goes against the grain of this site by being an Academy and calling it Mossbourne Comprehensive? Will you be calling WLFS West London Comprehensive too?
There’s something sinister in this Lewis Carroll use of words to mean what you want them to mean rather than looking at the substance.
I am new to this site. I am finding it a hugely important resource. These issues being discussed are extremely important.
However I am suprised and dismayed at how intelligent and informed people resort to undermining eachother, citing previous posts and turn valuable debate into personal attacks. This needs to be moderated and anyone posting a personal comment should have that comment removed.
This is imperative if we aim to foster open, live debate and protect the space from bullying approches to making a point.
L Turvey – thanks for your comment and I’m pleased you find the site a valuable resource. The site is lightly moderated to allow free debate. Unfortunately, as you say, some posters take advantage of this to mount attcks on other posters. This is probably done to dissuade posters from commenting.
Sometimes the citing of previous threads, which is something I often do, is to avoid repeating points previously made and to expand on points made within a post without making the post too long. Unfortunately, again, some posters refer back to posts under a thread or even to posts made on other forums. If the latter is spotted, it is usually removed.
You are right to say the issues discussed here are extremely important and the points of view expressed are a useful antidote to the rhetoric and misinformation coming from the Deparment for Education. Please keep coming back to add your voice.
I find it quite fascinating – the LSN is often portrayed as “a bunch of witless left wing idealists with no grasp of reality” by some but even though I am a Tory I find most of the views here well considered.
Maybe I’m reading the wrong threads
Mind you “L Turvey” is probably another posters sock puppet…….. (sock puppetry is where someone posts supporting themselves pretending to be someone else – the name comes from an argument with an astrologer originally)
Any suspect in mind?
I don’t think that’s going on here Ricky – L Turvey looks like a genuine contributor to me. I’ve never used socks on any forum and it’s not common on this one. It’s pretty easy to spot especially when posters write about their personal views and experiences in quite a lot of detail as tends to happen here.
That’s a fair comment Rebecca.
As I’m sure you know with your enormous expertise about forums, the usual sign of “socks” occurs when someone is losing an argument or has a point of view they strongly wish to push which is not considered valuable by other posters, or wants to provide multiple complainants against another poster.
Then posters appear out of nowhere, never having posted before, posting in support of that poster’s views, usually having recently signed up (some boards show you this information). The posters then often never post again on any other subject.
I’ve seen this a couple of times on other forums (there was one funny one on the TES board !) but obviously that wouldn’t happen here.
It’s usually obvious (the poster has nothing else to say so just parrots the views the original poster has) and sometimes quite funny. Socks usually aren’t smart enough to write in a different style.
I’m sure “L Turvey” whoever he or she is (I looked but Turvey is quite an unusual name) as she finds the discussions so interesting and is so concerned about bullying and debate will find the time to regularly post on other topics in his or her own unique style.
Those of us with grey hairs (or in my case, hair) will remember Rik Mayall’s first TV performance (I think) as a “comic leftie” – a precursor of Rik in the “Young Ones” called “Kevin Turvey” giving incoherent monologues repeating all kinds of wierd ideas. I’m sure “L” will do better
What’s your first name L by the way ? Can’t call you “L” can we