I have taught for most of my career in comprehensive schools and strongly believe in them, not only because of my personal experiences but because empirical evidence from all over the world shows that they are the most effective model for educating a whole population. However, in the UK their effectiveness is undermined by (a) the fact that we have comprehensive schools but not a universally comprehensive system; (b) the deep rooted British prejudice that only a minority is worth educating; (c) the continued existence of an overpowerful, elitist system of private schools; (d) a political narrative that offers education as an essentially private, rather than public, good to be competed for by means of a quasi-market; (e) an under-educated teaching force which is denied both adequate professional development and proper professional autonomy by meddling and deeply ignorant politicians...I could go on! Since retiring from school teaching I have joined the NEC of CASE and am its media spokesperson.
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Watch out for the DfE decision on an 'annex' in Sevenoaks 10 miles away from a grammar which could mean more and more grammars in comprehensive areas - as 'annexes'!
Make a date in your diary - we want to bring all comprehensive supporters together at the Comprehensive Future conference on Saturday 21st November in Westminster.
Margaret Tulloch
Comprehensive Future
Labour party have not formed a government since 2010
Need to stop treating electors and their children as chattel as if divine rulers
Free schools respond to human need
Whilst Labour politicians relocate to better boroughs or go selective or private
Never mind committing to comprehensive schooling just commit to schooling
We cannot blame parents instincts for wanting the best for their children, be it Grammars, preps or private schools.
We can blame ourselves for not having a level playing field for all, not just the rich.
If we do not do this the Social, Economic and Attainment Gap will continue to increase - we all know where that will lead!
Comprehensive Schools see everywhere else with high performing national education systems (Ref OECD).
I can't see what the Labour Party (or chattels) has to do with it. Margaret Thatcher created more comprehensive schools than any other SoS for Education.
Numerous parents and grandparents who earn their bread and butter teaching in the state system and regularly bang the drum about nasty private school education or selective education such as grammar schools are only too willing to pay for their offspring to be taught in the private sector. In my 40 years I have met countless headteachers, teachers, advisers, inspectors, Labour Party lead councillors for Children's Services and school governors at a range of conferences from 1960 to 2011 including those devoted to such purposes as advancing comprehensive schools or the equal opportuntities agenda only to find so frequently telling me in the bar at night," I agree with comprehensvie schools/ mixed ability classroom etc.But not my child/granchild."
Look to the present front bench of the Labour opposition and there you will see amongst the many who have attended independent schools: Chuka Umunna fee paying St Dunstan's College, Harriet Harmen ( fee paying St Paul's), Diane Abbot who paid for her son to attend an independent school, Andy Burnham who attended Culcheth Comp with its selective streaming policy that enabled him in part to enter Cambridge ( though he claims he couln't understand how he ended up at Cambridge as if by accident!). Two past Labour Secretary of State for Education-Shirley Williams ( raised by socialist agents who sent her to St Paul's) and Ruth Kelly ( Millfield and WestminsterSchool). When Ruth was in office for one of her children was sent to an independent school) . Tony Blair ( prestigous Fettes College) and don't forget all those believers in comprehensive schools who pushed for their offspring to the London Oratory hot house under the guise it was a Catholic faith school.
Case proven
Your case is no more than evidence-light prejudice.
Could you please provide links to the 'consumer research' which proves comprehensive schools aren't working?
The OECD found the best-performing school systems 'combine equity with quality'. It recommends (among other things) that countries should 'Avoid early tracking and defer student selection to upper secondary'. (Note: upper secondary begins at age 15/16)
The arguments against selection have been widely aired on this site, see Melissa Benn 'winning the argument on grammar schools' and Henry Stewart's 'Eleven grammar school myths' here.
These prove the case more than a list of privately-educated Labour politicians (their parents' choice, surely? And perhaps being privately educated alerted them to the unfairness of the system) and politicians who didn't believe their own rhetoric.
I was privately educated, left school with 4 O levels and 1 A level, did various secretarial qualifications and fiddled around doing "non jobs" in upmarket london Art Galleries and the like.
Makes you think doesn't it?
Margaret, please keep me informed, we from Bucks will do all we can.
We cannot blame parents instincts for wanting the best for their children, be it Grammars, preps or private schools.
We can blame ourselves for not having a level playing field for all, not just the rich.
If we continue the education apatite system, we will continue to expand the Social, Economic and Attainment Gaps - we all know where that will lead!
In a comment in our local newspaper. http://www.bucksfreepress.co.uk/news/12967963.Call_for_transparency_on_1...
Hope this was OK.
John - Fine, I am happy to see my book disturbing the murky waters of the 'Bucks Free Press'.
First of all the schools system in England's main structural division is between non state financed "Independent" schooling on the one hand, which educates overall about six per cent of the school age population, and is financed almost completely by fees paid by parents and that state funded system which is free at the point of use, and by law, may not charge fees.
Some independent schools, especially in London and particularly at the secondary stage are academically selective, setting entrance examinations of various kinds, but others are not, especially at the primary stage. They are all expensive with 14,000 a year being at the low end for school fees.
So being selective on ability is not of the essence of the Independent system.
So we should be clear that the Grammar School versus Comprehensive debate applies only to the state system. For a selective system to work you need:-
1. To decide what age to select at. The debate is almost always couched in terms of 11 plus.
2. To decide what proportion of the ability range go to Grammar Schools. I understand that at the end of the second world war when the 11 plus was introduced it was between five and ten percent of the cohort who were selected. The size of the selected groups depended on the local supply of Grammar School places and so varied around the country. In general there were more places for boys than girls. At that time a little less than that proportion went to university.
If Grammar Schools were to be fully re introduced a decision would have to be made about the correct size of the "upper range" taking into account that more than 40 per cent now go to university.
3. A reliable selection mechanism is needed. When the 11 plus was universal, one of the things that discredited it was the unacceptably high rates of "false negatives" many of whom carried a life long resentment of the experience of being labeled "stupid" barely mitigated in some cases by the subsequent experience of achieving as mature, or part time, or OU students, degrees. A crucial methodological problem in devising suitable tests which have many of the characteristics of IQ tests (with which they will tend to have a strong correlation) is that the stakes being so high, every possible coaching and tutoring device within reach of parents will be deployed. While psychometric tests, uncoached for, can be useful as a diagnostic tool, and to ground advice, coached for their reliability deteriorates. The more they matter, the less accurate they are.
4. In any selective system where a distinction is made between a minority higher ability range and the rest, the majority of children are failures consigned to the Secondary Modern part of the system. The politics of this is simple. Parents will say they want Grammar Schools up to the point their child does not get in to one. And it will be the majority of parents who will be disappointed.
:-)
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