In the
Daily Telegraph today journalist Allison Pearson claims that a return to selective education would restore the UK “to the premier league”. She trots out the usual misinformation about the so called ‘golden age’ of pre comprehensive English education in which“children from modest backgrounds” were able “ to compete with offspring of the wealthy for university places, thus breaching bastions of hereditary privilege and creating a more diverse group of people at the top of society"
Not for the first time in this highly charged debate, the pro grammar school lobby has got its facts wrong. It is not the case that the pre comprehensive education system provided a better standard of education for all children. Nor did it give a hand up to many poor children. That myth is usually based on anecdotal examples of individuals rather than the hard evidence, which points in the opposite direction.
The
1959 Crowther Report – commissioned by a Conservative Government to improve the education of 15-18 years olds - had a close look at what selective education meant in practice. Several interesting facts emerged – of the entire national cohort of 16 year olds in the late '50s only 9 % achieved 5 or more O levels. That figure today is around 70%. Moreover 38% of grammar school pupils failed to achieve more than 3 O levels
The report also pointed out that the rapid rise in school rolls after the war ' largely increased public clamour against a competitive element in grammar school selection, which seems to parents to be contrary to the promise of secondary education according to "age, aptitude and ability" ' So much for the imposition of comprehensive education against parents wishes ( another myth regularly trotted out by supporters of grammar schools).
The Committee used a national survey of English 15-18 year olds carried out in 1957 by the Central Office of Information, and a survey of National Service recruits carried out 1956-8. The latter was, of course, boys only.
In both surveys, boys from homes of semi-skilled or unskilled workers “were much under-represented in the composition of selective schools...Likewise they are over-represented in membership of non-selective schools. The converse is true of boys from professional or managerial homes, who have far more than their proportional weight in selective schools and far less in the case of other schools”. This is no different today – the proportion of children eligible for free school meals in the remaining grammar schools is around 2% compared to a national average of 17% in all other schools.
Specifically, the Social Survey found that whilst 1 in 10 fathers of grammar and technical school leavers were semi or unskilled workers, almost 1 in 4 fathers of secondary modern or all-age leavers fell into this group.
The National Service survey concluded that ”a majority of the sons of professional people go to selective schools, but only a minority of manual workers' sons do so”. “A non-manual worker's son is nearly three times as likely to go to a selective school as a manual worker's”.
On school leaving ages, the survey reported that 38% of the sons of the professional and managerial classes stayed till 18+ compared with 9% unskilled manual workers'; 40% of professional and managerial sons left before 17 compared with 81% manual workers.
The overall picture is of an education system that wasn’t even serving grammar school pupils particularly well, let alone those rejected at 11.
Ms Pearson ends her article by comparing the selection of a 15 year old boy with an aptitude for football by a premiership club with academic selection at 11, before calling on Sir Michael Wilshaw, the new Chief Inspector at Ofsted ( who she likens to a premiership manager) to restore the same competitive principle to schooling.
Again, sadly, she hasn’t done her research. Most scientific evidence now suggests that
teenagers brains can change, IQ isn’t fixed, as the early advocates of selective education believed, and judging children on the basis of a single test is neither reliable, nor comparable to the footballing skills of a 15 year old ( although early potential in football is often not fulfilled).
Professor Cathy Price of the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging at University College London recently published her research in the journal Nature.
The paper suggests that the results could be "encouraging to those whose intellectual potential may improve and… a warning that early achievers may not maintain their potential".
Professor Price said: "We have a tendency to assess children and determine the course of their education relatively early in life.
"But here we have shown that their intelligence is likely to be still developing.
"We have to be careful not to write off poorer performers at an early age when in fact their IQ may improve significantly given a few more years."
Finally – she may be looking to Sir Michael in vain. He has always been a firm advocate of all ability comprehensive schools with balanced intakes. In Melissa Benn’s excellent book “School Wars” (p 108) he describes selective education as “a disaster”.
Do your homework next time Allison.
Comments
I did not suspect the DT of deleting messages until assegai's moderate comment was removed yesterday. I actually believed they allowed controversial messages to stay under the free speech banner. Many of the comments on the DT site are racist and sexist to the point of generating hatred. Yet these are allowed to remain while assegai's link to this site was removed.
I doubt it. I suspect many of them are not aware that they have been selected to blog because their views are naive and provocative rather than because they are wise.....
It would be interesting to accumulate evidence regarding what the DT or any other newspaper are doing.
'Norman Tebbit, Janet Daley, Christopher Howse, Toby Young. No, not the cast of the forthcoming Addams Family remake, but some of the stars of the "rolling comment" factory that is Telegraph blogs.
'And long may they remain so - for the website has quietly introduced a culling strategy for its lowest-performing contributors. Evry writer is rated according to the number of hits their blog gets each month. Anyone who stays in the lowest 25 percent for three months running is put on warning. Linger in the bottom quarter for a further three months and you get dropped.
'So it's reasoned argument out, provocative headlines and attention-catching barminess in. And on that basis, which blogger holds the top position, month in, month out? James Delingpole. "He's always number one, because he really is batshit mad" mutters a lower-performing colleague.'
Thanks for posting this. I had no idea that was how the Telegraph blogsites worked. It puts it all into perspective.
I have 2 children, each with very different educational abilities and needs. I would split the schools into 3 Academic, Technical and a third for children who are needing extra help. There should be flexibility between the systems, and scope for expansion too, children should not feel 'trapped' in any specific pathway. We are not getting the best out of children by treating them all the same. Exams have got easier, standards have dropped, children are getting through without a grasp of the basics, something has to change, a more tailored approach is necessary.
In Germany the tri-partite system still exists in many states. However, the UN severely criticised Germany for its education system because it failed low-ability pupils and immigrant children. The Hauptschule (secondary modern) is seen as an establishment for the rejected.
Your third tier for "children who are needing extra help" would quickly be viewed as schools for "thickos" - this still happens in areas where secondary moderns still exist. The best system is one that does not segregate children according to ability. Evidence from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development shows that the best-performing countries in the international PISA tests tend to be those countries that do not segregate children. And a recent report on reading by the European Commission's education information network found that there was a link between the decision of Poland and Latvia to postpone the age at which pupils are streamed down different educational paths and the significant gains made by these countries.
Unfortunately, this research is not widely discussed in the England because it counters the prejudices of many parts of the media. This site, however, regularly highlights the research with links to evidence. Page 455 of Education at a Glance 2011 is a good place to start for evidence about inclusive education systems and their effect on achievement:
http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/61/2/48631582.pdf
Segregating children into "types" is unnecessary, more so if they are labelled "academic", "technical" or "needing special help" by farming them out to different types of schools. Why should "academic" children be denied "technical" knowledge and experience and vice versa? And why should children with special needs have to suffer more indignity by going to a school labelled as such?
With such rigid divisions, I can't see how it is at all possible there can be expansion and movement between schools, particularly if the "academic" school is viewed by a results obssessed system as being superior and equipped to offer better life chances.
I would agree that something has to change but segregating children is not the answer, as the nations who perform best in international tables prove. Those nations do not offer multiples of "choice" but many excellent schools, all of which are inclusive and teach children of all abilities under one roof. Further segregation, as you advocate, will drive overall standards down and will lead to a complete breakdown of social cohesion, so that those separated for a "better" education will have immediate access to better higher education and jobs. This will fuel greater resentment. When large numbers of the population are excluded, we ought not to be surprised when they rebel and riot.
With over one million young people between 16 and 24 unemployed and with little hope of employment under the coalition's catastrophic economic policies, the Tories have already bequeathed a legacy of a lost generation of young people, many of them already wondering why they should saddle themselves with going to school or higher education if all they get at the end of it is £40,000 worth of debt and having to do voluntary work in Poundland.
This was tried before and failed. The most successful systems in the world are fully comprehensive. Bringing back selection is the wrong solution to problems that still exist in our school system most of which can still be addressed in all ability schools with the right leadership, teaching, curriculum and commitment from central government .
I'm sorry but this is just nonsense. Sure, in my area we have 40% youth unemployment - but any 19-year old from Gdansk can get a job tomorrow. This has zero to do with the current government and everything to do with the utter failure of Labour's policies in education (and everything else).
I don't like the Tories but they've been in power for just 1 of the last 14 years. Statements like the above just destroy what little persuasiveness your arguments have.
I would also be interested to read any evidence you have that a 19 year old from Gdansk can get a job tomorrow.
The important task for our governments, and for us, is to enable as many children as can to become resourceful and to educate and care for those who cannot reach so high.
Yep, here it comes: the appeal to authority.
My brother-in-law just hired the 19-year old from Gdansk to answer his phones. She had better English than any of the home-grown candidates.
"The important task for our governments ..."
It's leaving this to the government that got us into this mess in the first place. The path to social progress is not through centralisation but through local and institutional autonomy. Let's stop trying to be East Germany circa 1979 and adopt the Swiss model instead. It can't be worse, surely.
Oh. Personal and anecdotal then. I'm moving on then. I'm done with engaging with the ignorant and insane.
Let's not pretend that the comprehensive system is not selective.
Do you think you could give some reasons for this statement to back it up?
There is selection in the comprehensive system - by faith for example. I would be wholly in favour of abolishing that too although the majority of faith schools are all ability schools.
Instead of selecting by ability most comprehensives use house prices. Is that better?
Community schools admit their intake by catchment area. As areas become gentrified, then there probably will be a greater mix of children from different socio-economic backgrounds but that is ultimately a good thing for the school, as evidence points to mixed ability, non-selective schools do best in international rankings. The catchment area remains the same but perhaps the demographics have changed. It does not follow that the local school then selects by house prices.
Whats needs to be addressed is how to raise attainment in schools that are in poorer areas where regeneration has not yet come calling and where the more middle class intake has not yet contributed to raising the exam results, if indeed league tables are the only bar with which to measure a school's achievements. These schools require more resources to help children trapped in the cycle of poverty-low attainment and this includes not just improved schools premises, but much better provision in social welfare, mentoring, resources in subjects such as music and drama which spark confidence in children who never knew they had any creative ability which in turn will inspire them to become more engaged in learning academic subjects.
This will only become possible if the Secretary for Education recognised that all schools are different and all schools face different challenges. Instead, he resorts to a one size fits all, punitive "no excuses approach if schools with a challenging school population are not exceeding the expectations equally applicable to a school in a wealthy area.
Instead of tackling this, the government's economic policies have increase child poverty and unemployment to record levels and cut the schools capital budget by some 60%, meaning amputations to essential repairs and services in schools. The most vulnerable bear the biggest burden of these policies, so in fact the government is cutting adrift the children from homes, the market value of which won't even figure in the debate.
What about the areas that don't get gentrified or go the other way altogether?
Jenny and Janet, on the tripartite system (embedded in the 1944 Education Act) Technical Schools (in some areas) were the socially least desirable schools, being housed in old buildings – sometimes the former Elementary Schools built after 1870. Secondary Moderns were often preferred, being started with new buildings and enthusiastic teachers and (in some cases) having options for pupils to transfer to Grammar Schools in time to start O Level courses.
More importanly, I think that we need to be careful about accepting the idea that children were or can be reliably selected on "ability". "Ability" and the related concepts of "Intelligence" or "Disposition" are superficially attractive ideas that make sense in general conversation, but their translations into reliable and valid measures that have the power to predict later achievement have never been secure. They are, at heart, summary evaluations with strong social and judgemental characteristics , not scientific realities based on confident knowledge of causal regularities. However we classify and grade our children every teacher of every class is always faced with a set of widely different children, who can all change beyond recognition over a lifetime, and who can all surprise us with simultaneous outbreaks of stupidity and genius. Education is still a disputed moral practice, not a science. Pretending otherwise leads us into failure and injustice. A major function of teaching is to first know your pupils. Test results are interesting and useful only once you have had time to know the child directly.
It would be wrong to generalise about technical schools. They did not always rise from old buildings. The Dunsmore Boys' and Dunsmore Girls' school in Rugby, for example, were new-build technical schools established c1957 (now amalgamated with a third school to become Ashlawn School). Although described as a technical school, the girls' school had two streams: grammar and secondary. It was reclassified as bi-lateral and had a full range of ability from high-fliers to pupils then described as "remedial" who could barely read or write. The Dunsmore schools were not regarded as the "socially least desirable".
http://www.jstor.org/pss/588274
Thanks Janet. Lovely detail. My "in some areas" was a bit shoddy - I was thinking of a singular case where my Mother worked briefly as a teacher, in Leamington Spa. (not so far from Dunsmore). It goes to show how important "local" can be in discussing educational policy.
The end point of these recent trends will be (and in some areas might already be) a strengthening of socially division that is characterised by unequal provision and leads to reduced social mobility. Social harmony is diminished and economic resilience is reduced. An extreme example of the way that segregation and selection can reflect and contribute to a damaged society has been in Northern Ireland.
At this point good Tories like the late Edward Boyle might be looking to set the elite schools free to pay their own way (a reversed "payment by results") while concentrating generous resources (particularly the state-trained staff) on the fewer casualty schools whose multiple difficulties are leaving their pupils behind. Old Etonians might soon be looking on enviously as the stars of inner city schools enrol for Classics at Oxbridge with Latin and Greek at A*and a science curriculum taught in the medium of Chinese.
What is astounding is that pro-"reform" lobby are willfully blind to the fact the the nations whose schools perform at the very top of league tables are those which do not segregate or select. This degree of blindness make James Murdoch appear as if he 20:20 vision!
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/tobyyoung/100131191/will-bringing-back...
Who cares Toby? If people can be bothered with your thoughts and want to leave a comment there, they will only get censored by yourself or the Right Wing Press Barons. I have to say I find your need to be noticed by and validated by Fiona Millar a little creepy and sad.
You say in your article: "If we accept that bright children from deprived backgrounds are more likely to excel in grammar schools – and I think that's indisputable – and we also accept that less bright children in neighbouring schools will suffer as a result of not being taught alongside them – again, hard to dispute – the question is whether that's a price worth paying?"
Are you really saying that it doesn't matter if a less bright child won't benefit from being in contact with children of higher ability? What you are effectively saying is that the dim can stay a little bit dim. This is not the attitude in those countries where performance is high and the difference between low and high ability children is narrower than in England. In Finland, teachers are expected to deal with all abilities and they are taught together. I'm sure you're aware that Finland is the top-performing European country.
A bright child will excel in a comprehensive school. And university students from comprehensive schools outperform their peers from independent and grammar schools.
You say it is a parent's right to choose the type of education they want for their child. Choosing a grammar school does not ensure acceptance - if the child is not in the top 25% of the ability range the grammar school will not accept the child. And a fully-comprehensive school can't exist alongside a grammar. The only schools next to grammar schools are secondary moderns - and that's why you'll find such a large number of under-performing (as measured by raw exam grades) secondary schools in Kent and Lincolnshire.
Good to know, though, that you read Fiona's piece especially as a link under Pearson's article which directed Telegraph readers here was removed. What could have been the reason for its removal when so many posts on other DT threads which are racist and sexist almost to the point of inciting hatred are allowed to remain?
When we were on the same platform at the NEEC you said you were in favour of comprehensive schools..
Because, of course, anyone who doesn't share your views must not be allowed to join the debate, eh?
"homophobic" as well, but Toby wants to draw a line under all that.
And so I am. I think grammars and comprehensives can coexist perfectly happily.
You join as many debates as you like.
Private education complicates the whole thing of course, because if what I'm saying is taken to it's conclusion, then Britain has never had a comprehensive education system.
Well I say it's essential. It's essential if you live in a democratic country. It might not be essential, say, in a monarchy where the king had put his favourite son a pet project of running education and the power to sack anyone who disagreed with him and neither the king nor his son could be bothered to see reality through their enormous egos.
Thanks, that's big of you!
I can assure you I've never censored anyone's comments Alan – and I very much doubt any of the Telegraph's moderators have either. If you check out the comment threat beneath my blog post, you'll see plenty of people disagreeing with me.
We don't believe you Toby. You're a Tory and therefore by definition an evil hobgoblin who is not fit to grovel at the feet of the great Beavis. Personally I always preferred Butthead.
Well that has not been my experience nor the experience of many other people. I'll pass on reading your latest blog, thank you - I haven't been interested in reading any of them in a very long time.
"Evil, having lost the meaning attributed to it by the monotheistic religions, has instead come to mean ‘someone who disagrees with me’."
I might disagree with Toby on some things but I don't think it does anyone - or any issue - or any conversation - any good to call names (whether it be Raymond or Jake!)
The description of Toby as a hobgoblin is ironic. I'm sorry if it's been misunderstood. I like the guy. How to lose friends is very funny.
It is - you are right!! I just seem to see that the substance of a thread tends to dry up with this sometimes and I think its good to engage in a meaningful way!
It is not.
Toby says "We're engaged in an experiment to see what it's possible to achieve with an all-ability group of children – we're trying to re-invent the comprehensive,"
I see the aim of the WLFS which of course exactly matches the original ethos of the Comprehensives.
I am confidant that the top academic students, with the private sector provenance of many senior staff at WLFS , will be able to access marvellous support for Oxbridge and Russell Group entry and this is to be applauded.
But the worry is that is the school large enough to deliver the streaming and subject resources to engage the whole gamut of abilities? Standing alone from the LEA can it efficiently access the learning support expertise and services provided by the LEA when a single child baulks or creates disruption at school?
At the time many columnists attributed this to the ending of selection. Tim Luckhurst in the Times even argued that only a ‘blend of ideological zeal and intellectual dishonesty’ could now defend the comprehensive system.
But whilst Toby Young quotes one of the LSE researchers suggesting ‘probably that system got more people through from the bottom end of the system than we currently have today’, my understanding is that this comment was in response to persistent questioning about grammar schools at the press conference for the paper’s launch. The issue is not discussed in the paper which, in any case, suggests that only a third of the perceived decline in social mobility has been due to educational factors.
But there are bigger reasons for questioning the interpretation put on this paper by so many newspaper columnists in the past seven years.
The data only applies to boys. It is beyond doubt that the educational attainment of girls has risen faster than that of boys in the last fifty years and had we had the figures for social mobility across the whole population a different picture might have emerged.
More significant is the confusion which has afflicted nearly everyone who has written on this topic about the childrens’ dates. Nick Cohen in the Observer, under the headline Long live grammar schools made much of the ‘grouse moor image of 1958.
But the children were born in 1958 not selected for secondary school then. By 1969 when these children went to secondary school at least a third would have gone to comprehensive schools and the large majority would have seen their schools convert before they left in 1974. And according to the report, 1974 (and 1986 for the those born in 1970) are the key dates.
Because what the report actually says is that the major factor in any decline in social mobility was the difference in the rates of staying on at school after 16 between the middle and working class. And note that it was a relative difference. The percentage of poorer children staying in did rise significantly with the advent of comprehensive education but middle class children took much more advantage of the opportunities offered.
Any headteacher will tell you that many children from poorer homes will make their decision about staying on at school later than those from professional homes - often only in year 11. By 1974, when the 1958 children reached 16, 75% of English children were in comprehensive schools.
Most of the many articles written on this topic in the past seven years are based on a false assumption which a little less ideological zeal on the part of the writers might have corrected.
What could be a more effective way of subverting the arcane prejudices of the grammar obsessed middle classes than the emergence of the ” KUDOS COMP”
i.e the future planned expansion of the WLFS into partnerships with the Kent secondary moderns ?
I meant e.g not i.e
"For the time being Tim’s world view is in the ascendant, so I make the best of it and wait for another election and encourage my children and grandchildren to be open hearted."
I fear waiting for another election is a vain hope given that Labour has just had 12 years to remove the 11 plus and done nothing!
We must remember that in the 1960's Crosland allowed communities to choose to go Comprehensive with the incentive , not just of equality, but also of new school builds.
The Grammars remained in areas where a) some isolated girls grammars had to remain for gender equality to match the local impregnable Haberdashers/charity boys schools or b) the right wing controlled LEA wished to retain selection.
In which case is the Grammar today safer as an Academy or remaining under the LEA ?
So , to move the Grammar vs Comp debate along lets assume the moral argument for abolition of Secondary Moderns is won; we come to how is it to be achieved?.
Labour needs to state unequivocally NOW that when they come to power there will be a carefully phased programme to abolish the secondary moderns.
I could see this entailing :
a) any post 2010 increase in selective places must become non-selective or the school will lose the funding for that place. Labour needs to do this NOW to suppress investment in the expansion of Grammars .
b) Schools selecting on the basis of the 11 plus are not to use a catchment area; the "opportunity" is to be available to all [ tho' school transport will be limited to say 15 miles??- I'm sure market forces will see the opening of a private boarding facility if necessary) . This will greatly increase the level of competition amongst the militant pro-Grammar folk and they can tear themselves apart fighting over places. It will also mean only the very brightest , hopefully 10% will get in and the Grammars will become the "boffin" academies serving the very-bright that they should be not just the ivory tower of the middle-class child hot-housers.
c) Simultaneous investment into the conversion of the secondary moderns into quality comprehensives ( which again raises the possibility- dare I say it - that partnering with "Kudos Comp Free schools" could be a force for good????)
As long as grammar schools exist there will be secondary moderns. A secondary modern can never be a comprehensive because it does not have the full range of ability. It may be a "quality" secondary modern offering an excellent education to its pupils. But it will always be seen as second-best and second-rate.
This is what happens in Lincolnshire.
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