British Grammars for British Pupils

[zee]

Locally to us there is a sports college that takes 25 a year on sporting ability.There is a school taking a similar number on performing Arts ability another fairly local selects for gifting in science, another languauges and so on.
These are comps that just select small amount that reflect their specialism. Some would say this is taking places from the locals but then, of course, they are welcome to apply to schools with other specialisms too.
I think more and more schools will do this and I feel that makes specialist schools make more sense.

How many different specialisms are there: maths/sci, languages, performing arts, sport, business and enterprise, technology, humanities, music...? That's at least 8.

In a big city, where most children could be in easy distance of each, that might not be too bad, but in small towns, let alone rural areas, there are only one or two schools within a sensible distance (I'll leave catchments out of this for now), the majority of children may end up at a school specialising in something they hate! Crazy.

Furthermore, I'm not convinced of any significant benefits in specialising in particular subjects pre age 16 anyway, and post 16, longer journeys may be viable.

However, when comparing a two tier (grammar + secondary modern) versus comprehensive system, you only need two specialisms (intensive traditional academic, and broader education, with more opportunities for skills-based learning), and they permeate every lesson for every child.

[Guest55]

http://www.specialistschools.org.uk/sch ... ation.aspa

A specialism is not necessarily a strength of a school ... it's a way of accessing more money!

Once a specialism is granted it can help a school build up a weaker area ...

[zee]

A specilaism is not necessarily a strength of a school ... it's a way of accessing more money! Once a specialism is granted it can help a school build up a weaker area ...

I knew it was a way to get money, but I naively assumed it had to be a strength.

Also of course, specialisms can be withdrawn, so if you chose a school on the basis it was a language specialist (for example), even if it was genuinely good at languages, it could lose its specialist status or swap to another one.

And some schools have several "specialisms", which clearly means they are not specialist in the normal sense of the word. My DS's "specialises" in maths, phys, chem, bio, IT, electronics, French, Spanish, German etc!

Once the government target of all schools being specialist is met, there won't even be any relative financial advantage in specialist status.

Mad.

[Chelmsford mum]

I agree it might not work in rural areas Zee. However it does work in some areas.In all the local schools their specialism is their strength and gives each school a unique ethos/ flavour.
We have a falling roll generally and it does give local parents a real "choice" as most children can access places at the school where the specialism appeals.
I know that is not the case elsewhere.

[Giulio]

In Scandinavian countries, they have academic schools (like grammars) and more vocational ones, but there isn't a selection test: it's up to parents and schools to pick which is most suitable for each child, and because there isn't a cultural stigma against the vocational schools, there's no shame in picking them. Perfect system. But how we'd get from where we are to that, I can't begin to imagine.

Similarly in Italy and I Czech, where the choice is done at 13 or 14. If you think you want to study hard and go to university, you pick a liceum,
if you want learn a trade, or a profession, you chose that type of school. Generally there is no selection, no catchment area, and is up to the schools to keep up with the demand.

How hard is it to do a bit of planning? How is it possible that in London there is a primary school places crisis? Did they all show up as five-year-old out of nowhere?
Obviously there will be a secondary school places crisis (I mean worse then now) in 5 to 7 years.

I suppose we can't get to that system until there is an overall shortage of school places, that creates the need for mechanisms to ration the offer (selection, catchment area, religion).

Once offer is increased, the next step is to shift the power of choice from the schools to the families. This could be done gradually, e.g. changing the appeal process first in favour of people, changing the admission code, for example give parents the right to get a place in one of the three nearest schools, and the final objective is to scrap admission criteria

surely we can't be worse then the Italians

[Giulio]

A specilaism is not necessarily a strength of a school ... it's a way of accessing more money!

... and is a way of doing a bit of covert selection by ability, to raise school results

[mike1880]

Only a tiny minority of schools do any selection based on their specialism, even for those that do it's only a maximum of 10% of their intake.

Mike

[zee]

[I suppose we can't get to that system until there is an overall shortage of school places, that creates the need for mechanisms to ration the offer (selection, catchment area, religion).

Once offer is increased, the next step is to shift the power of choice from the schools to the families. This could be done gradually, e.g. changing the appeal process first in favour of people, changing the admission code, for example give parents the right to get a place in one of the three nearest schools, and the final objective is to scrap admission criteria

I don't understand.

Surely a shortage of school places gives less power to the parents, not more?

There is already a shortage of places at many of the most popular schools and giving more choice to parents is likely to exacerbate that.

If you gave parents a right to one of the three nearest schools, what if they didn't physically have the space? And that still doesn't help if one is much more popular than the others.

Then you suggest scrapping admission criteria!!! Huh? How would that work? Am I missing something?

[Chelmsford mum]

[I suppose we can't get to that system until there is an overall shortage of school places, that creates the need for mechanisms to ration the offer (selection, catchment area, religion).

Once offer is increased, the next step is to shift the power of choice from the schools to the families. This could be done gradually, e.g. changing the appeal process first in favour of people, changing the admission code, for example give parents the right to get a place in one of the three nearest schools, and the final objective is to scrap admission criteria

I don't understand.

Surely a shortage of school places gives less power to the parents, not more?

There is already a shortage of places at many of the most popular schools and giving more choice to parents is likely to exacerbate that.

If you gave parents a right to one of the three nearest schools, what if they didn't physically have the space? And that still doesn't help if one is much more popular than the others.

Then you suggest scrapping admission criteria!!! Huh? How would that work? Am I missing something?

Perhaps Giuilo meant shortage of children to fill the places(ie a falling roll) as we have here in Essex.As I said before we do actually have some choice locally because of that drop off in numbers.Although if it continued to fall over many years, we would be faced with school closures.

[mike1880]

Frankly I wouldn't be interested in a "right" to any of our three nearest schools, our whole approach to admissions is to try very hard not to be offered a place at any of them.

Mike