The damage grammar schools do -- a headteacher speaks out...

Francis Gilbert's picture
 62
John Stanley, headteacher of St. John's Catholic Comprehensive School in Gravesend, speaks out in this video about the destructive effect of the grammar schools in the area. His eloquent words about the potentially dire situation his brilliant schools is facing amount to a desperate plea for the Education Secretary to stop grammar schools from expanding. This is something that Comprehensive Future are campaigning to stop; please sign up with them if you feel strongly about the issue. As you will see in the video, it is harming the education of ALL the children in Kent, which is one of the few local authorities in the UK that runs a fully fledged 11+ exam.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBF5x-sPVeA
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Comments

Janet Downs's picture
Mon, 28/05/2012 - 14:44

Why not 16? Indeed. If it were up to me all children would receive a broad and balanced education up to 16 and then decide what route they wish to take post-16. But we have a situation in the UK whereby pupils have to choose options at 14. Note that I said I agreed that 14-year-olds should be able to choose their options NOT that I agreed with splitting them into vocational/academic at 14.

In any case, your description of vocational/academic tracks at 14 is too crude. Pupils choose from a range of options which include vocational and academic subjects taking into consideration individual aptitudes, interests and future progression.

This is NOT what happens at age ten. The pupils don't choose. Neither in reality do their parents. It is the selective system that chooses and rejects pupils based on a test. OECD analysis based on considerable research confirms that such early selection militates against increasing overall educational outcomes.

Rebecca Hanson's picture
Mon, 28/05/2012 - 15:14

We aren't splitting our children into academic and vocational routes at 14. We are allowing some of our students (usually those who have no prospect of getting their 5 A* to Cs) to have a 20% vocational curriculum.

There were some schools who were doing weird qualifications to hit targets but most weren't.

In essence Michael Gove has moved our schools from an academic curriculum with a moderate degree of choice provided you do loads of subjects to an academic curriculum with barely any choice at all in order to try to correct the abuse of some qualifications by some schools.

Why couldn't he have just changed the accreditation of the qualifications which were the problem? Why abolish there being any credit for DT or RE or Art or VGCSEs? They are all perfectly decent academic qualifications which motivate and engage students.

My apologies that my use of language earlier in describing a 'vocational stream' has not helped here. Although they were classed as being a 'vocational stream' this a name which is intended for them and their teachers, not to decribe what they do which is academic, not vocational. The splitting of the academic students between an 'academic stream' and a 'vocational stream' allows teachers to focus on ensuring those in the academic stream choose subjects which will prepare them for top universities (almost Ebacc but with a choice instead of being forced to do history or geography), while those in the unhelpfully named vocational stream have a lot more freedom of choice because we are hoping to inspire and engage them so they might at a push get into university or they may just work hard with a view to getting themselves jobs.

The modern baccalaureate seems to be really well conceived and fit for purpose by the way. If I were Michale Gove I would drop the Ebacc and all schools to focus on the Modern Baccalaureate instead. It was designed in the real world for real children by people who understand what will help and what won't.

Tabbers's picture
Mon, 28/05/2012 - 15:24

Janet Downs: "However, it doesn’t follow that because I agree that 14- year-olds should be able to choose their options, some of which will be academic, or streamed, or vocational, that I agree with a system that rejects 75% of children at age 10."
^^^^^^^^^

Note the word that I've highlighted here. It's you that's making the value judgement that children selected for a non-academic stream have failed.

This is part of the reason why the system was abolished - because of the drip drip of those who took umbrage at Modern Schools as being a failure, rather than an attempt to provide a more tailored and child-centred education.

Given all we know now, it surely makes sense to create local centres of excellence for vocational, musical, sports or academic abilities?

Tabbers's picture
Mon, 28/05/2012 - 15:26

Rebecca - why do you (and most modern state-school staff) refer to pupils as "students"? Genuine question.

When did this transition take place?

Pupils learn in schools and students in Universities.

Rebecca Hanson's picture
Mon, 28/05/2012 - 15:34

I don't use the word pupils at all Tabbers. It's not part of my vocabularly except in relation to eyes. I'm not sure why that is - dialect perhaps?


Tabbers's picture
Mon, 28/05/2012 - 15:41

Pupils at school - students at University.

I blame America. It seems to have been imported from there in the last ten years.

Tabbers's picture
Mon, 28/05/2012 - 15:30

Rebecca - "Teenagers are hard to engage and hard to teach well. Most of them are not mini adults – they are hormonal, the are easily bored and they struggle with the relentless bells and changes of lesson. They are much easier to teach well if they have a vision of themselves in the future which they believe in and are pursuing it. For some children that vision is university and an academic curriculum is great for them"

I agree with all of this and the logical step that follows is that those that ARE mini adults and who do have the vision to see themselves going to University far too often have to spend their school days in the company of those who aren't/don't, and that as a result they are diverted from following this path. Hence - selection.

Rebecca Hanson's picture
Mon, 28/05/2012 - 15:40

That depends on whether teachers can adapt their teaching to use methodologies which properly engage the unmotivated studetns or not. The best teaching methodologies benefit all students.

Alternatively schools can stream which has the rough effect of separating the motivated and the unmotivated for key academic subjects. It's less important for other subjects because often studetns who are poorly behaved in high pressure subjects are much better in the subjects they've elected to take. Lessons like RE and some other subjects (depending on how they're taught) can be all the better for having some gobby kids with challenging views in there. I'm not saying they always are of course, but motivated students don't need to have perfect experiences in all lessons all the time to thrive.

Tabbers's picture
Mon, 28/05/2012 - 15:43

Sometimes its not just the messing about in lessons, but the deliberate targeting of pupils who are motivated to learn, such that they learn quickly not to demonstrate their ability.


Tabbers's picture
Mon, 28/05/2012 - 15:30

PS - how is Simon Schaffer?


Rebecca Hanson's picture
Mon, 28/05/2012 - 15:41

no idea. I suspect I've never met him. It's a long time I left. But I still love the subject.


Tabbers's picture
Mon, 28/05/2012 - 15:44

You didn't take "History of Science 1600-1750" then :-)

Have they filled in the missing slice of ball yet?

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