Grammar and Faith school expansion.

[loopylala]

Hopefully, together with the expansion of existing grammars, new grammars will be established in the areas where there are none at present

According to this article:

https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/e ... -education" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The Sevenoaks annex to Tonbridge’s Weald of Kent Grammar School – cost £19m. I'm not convinced two new Grammar schools will make a massive imact, tbh.

[loopylala]

Visit Tiffin School’s admission policy for 2019. To your utter shock, you may find that PP children have higher priority; not for few places but to the extend of PAN.

I look forward to seeing how many PP DCs there are in the 2019 September intake

[tiffinboys]

But the anti-grammars are crying as if World is falling apart.

£50 million between 163 grammars is just peanuts.

[loopylala]

But the anti-grammars are crying as if World is falling apart.

I will have no problem with two new grammars opening up on your doorstep

[anotherdad]

Bright children have the right too to be educated in the environment best suited to them. Opponents of grammars seems to be forgetting that.

No we don't. We do however, remember that with rights come responsibilities and as much as "bright children" have the right to be educated in the most suitable environment, it is society's responsibility to ensure that all children have the same rights. Putting pro- and anti-grammar views to one side for a moment, do you think that £50m is better spent making modest expansions to schools where the majority of attending children already have access to good education thanks to their parents' backgrounds, or better spent on ensuring that children from more challenging backgrounds, those with SEN, those in care and so on, receive at least a good standard of education?

My opposition to today's proposals is not motivated by my views on academic selection or faith-based education (I am a critic of the former and think the latter shouldn't be state-funded). My reason for opposition is that in the face of obvious deficiencies in school funding across the board (including grammar schools), and a continual, deliberate erosion of the standing of the teaching profession, the government seems fit to chuck over £50m at something that doesn't need it. We have a good secondary school in our area that is reducing its school week from September in the face of funding cuts. I suspect it is the first to break cover and that others might follow. Tell me how expanding the number of places in the area's grammar schools or by adding more faith schools will benefit that school's 1,200 children with their lost teaching hours, or their parents' resulting childcare challenges. And that's a government listening to what parents want, is it?

Edited to add:

[tiffinboys]

it is society's responsibility to ensure that all children have the same rights.

Fully agree with you. Bright children are part of 'all' children too.

If you have read my previous posts, I have always advocated that all schools should be properly funded. But it should not mean that the needs of grammar schools should be neglected year after year.

Not to forget.

[Amber]

There is no evidence whatsoever from anywhere, ever, that 'bright children' (sic) are being 'let down' by not being in grammar schools. Astonishingly, there are bright children all over the country, all over the world even, not just in Buckinghamshire and Kent. If the 'letting down' of such prodigious minds was happening on such a grand scale I think we might have heard about it by now.

There is, however, plenty of evidence that 'less bright children' (sic again) are being massively let down and are under-achieving across the board in this, most unequal of countries. I am not sure how waving off their 'bright' (you get the idea) peers off to grammar schools is going to help them at all.

I am not going to click on this thread again. Dealing with the utter refusal of some of those who worship the idea of grammar schools to even consider for one moment that there are arguments against requires more patience and energy than I currently have to spare.

(Note - 'bright' in this context means: 'usually middle class, or coming from a home well-endowed with cultural capital'. It should not be confused as having anything to do with intelligence, or promise, or rights to a different education from 'not so bright' children).

[justkeepmoving]

Not always getting what you want, is part of life.

Speaks the person who probably gets what the want most of the time.

We did not choose the grammar school system as we moved here 10 year before our children were born. But we have seen both sides of the system, having had one child pass and go to grammar and one child 'fail' and go to an upper.

I totally agree with all the comments about this money could be better spent elsewhere, even if it is just a drop in the ocean.

I may be looking at this in a simplistic way, but if grammar schools expand, they either need to increase their catchment to take in pupils from areas not currently covered by them. Or they reduce the pass mark so a few borderline failures now get a place. I cannot see how that helps the disadvantaged. But it could mean that the top pupils in the local upper would now be at the local grammar thus reducing the upper schools performance overall.

So how will this help the majority of the disadvantaged who normally end up in the upper school which is now underperforming even more. They are expected to keep up with the other schools whilst taking the bottom 70% of the cohort, now they could be taking the bottom 60%.

[tiffinboys]

There is no evidence whatsoever from anywhere, ever, that 'bright children' (sic) are being 'let down' by not being in grammar schools.

More likely, no research done in this respect. Don't expect it from Left leaning organizations undertaking such assignments.

However, even Ofstead Chiefs have time and again stated the bright children are being failed in comprehensive schools and that they are not achieving to their potential. Previous threads, locked, are full of relevant links.

If children in non-selective schools are being let down, it is not because of bright children in grammar setting.

Bright also does not mean middle class white children of parents who can afford tutors.

I also think that anti-grammars refuse to listen to any argument in favour of selective schools, though they gladly send their children there.

[anotherdad]

If you have read my previous posts, I have always advocated that all schools should be properly funded. But it should not mean that the needs of grammar schools should be neglected year after year.

I have read your previous posts and you've just summed things up perfectly. You believe that all schools should be properly funded and that grammar schools' needs should not be neglected. That sounds reasonable to me. So the spare £50m (and an unspecified amount more for new faith schools) that the government has found down the back of the sofa should be shared among all schools. We agree on that point.

This is the crux of my view on this: If there is spare money available, grammar school and faith school expansion should not be at the head of the queue for it, or anywhere near the top of the list for that matter. It's laughable to think they should be when there are schools that between them teach tens of thousands of children but which cannot afford to do so to a good standard or with a full compliment of staff, when there are lots of children with SEN not receiving the support they need because it cannot be properly funded, when there are thousands of children attending schools with old estate that is crumbling around them and so on and so on. Get those basic needs sorted and it might be time to consider what educational luxuries the state can afford.

Frankly, it's a desperate move from a government that has long since lost control of events and needs two things: some quick-win headlines to assure core supporters that they are still in business and some distractions to take our eyes away from their muddled attempts at Brexit negotiations and the splits in the party and in cabinet that Cameron supposedly put to bed by calling the referendum and May tried to put to bed by calling an election. They only open their mouth to change feet and this is another example of that.