Prince of Wales & Grammar Schools

[tiffinboys]

Oh, I was under the impression that uppers are secondary schools too.

MPs could lobby the schools and the DoE and propose the appropriate law. Convincing the unelected governors seems to be more difficult.

[Guest55]

Oh, I was under the impression that uppers are secondary schools too.

They are but no transport to many ... GS or special measures school - what choice is that? Where you live is vastly different and you appear to know very little about Bucks.

[Stressed?Moi?]

I'm still not getting why grammars are being vilified. Surely the questions in grammar test should be capable of being answered by all, no matter what their background; it's not just rich kids that get taught about fractions or full stops. If not, that is the fault of the primary school system, not the aspirations of people from all walks of life? Also, I believe parents have a part to play in this. Most of us have access to a computer to download papers etc (from here for example) either at home or free in libraries, which of course also provide many educational books which will help pupils prepare for the test. Also, why aren't more parents (as I have done) speaking with the primary schools and insisting on more work being set and questioning things if they consider standards are too low? This is what the mums of children I mentioned in my other posts did too. They don't consider themselves trapped in poverty, just determined they want better for their children. One has to do her homework in the living room as she shares with her young sister who needs naps, not that there is space in their room to do it anyway. Parents like the vast majority of us on this forum will fight tooth and nail to get their child what they deem to be the best education. As for there being no academies/comps/free schools being available in the areas near grammars, that isn't the case in Gloucestershire.

[pippi]

I agree the pure VR type was very tutorable, but the CEM format I believe, isn't. It is purely made up of questions that would have been covered by the National Curriculum at any primary school. Children should have been taught fractions, punctuation, grammar, etc, by the time they reach that age. They are difficult questions because the point is they are trying to capture the most intelligent. There should be no social engineering in grammar schools - it HAS to be about capturing the brightest as the sole criteria and nothing else.

Along with your next post, IMO this illustrates nicely how difficult it is to make a coherent argument in favour of selecting 10 year olds! There are some even better examples in this:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publicati ... l-for-boys
I love:

It is clear from the report that the reasoning tests (VR and NVR) reveal overall ability and potential and so a pupil who is not currently achieving their potential at primary school can still demonstrate their true ability through his scores from the reasoning questions.

The "report" was discredited self-promotional bumpf written by the people who set the VR and NVR tests...

[mystery]

I agree the pure VR type was very tutorable, but the CEM format I believe, isn't. It is purely made up of questions that would have been covered by the National Curriculum at any primary school. Children should have been taught fractions, punctuation, grammar, etc, by the time they reach that age. They are difficult questions because the point is they are trying to capture the most intelligent. There should be no social engineering in grammar schools - it HAS to be about capturing the brightest as the sole criteria and nothing else.

Along with your next post, IMO this illustrates nicely how difficult it is to make a coherent argument in favour of selecting 10 year olds! There are some even better examples in this:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publicati ... l-for-boys
I love:

It is clear from the report that the reasoning tests (VR and NVR) reveal overall ability and potential and so a pupil who is not currently achieving their potential at primary school can still demonstrate their true ability through his scores from the reasoning questions.

The "report" was discredited self-promotional bumpf written by the people who set the VR and NVR tests...

Or is actually a better test of ability than whether or not someone has been taught how to use full stops well and applies it well? The whole argument is a very good one about how it's pretty difficult to separate children out or produce a good test to do so. It all depends on what you want to separate them out into and why, and even then, if you all agreed on that you are always going to have the "borderline" pass / fail misery.

Some one higher up said that anyone can push their school into doing more. What if the school resists? Or what if the parent doesn't have a good enough education themselves to realise that they need to do this?

There are huge differences between KS2 attainment at primary schools with similar intakes. A test which separates children out on the basis of their primary attainment runs the risk of just measuring the schools not the pupils.

I have been in the process of trying to make up for the lack of my children's primary school compared with better ones for several years now. I started out by trying with the school. It didn't work. Now I try to make up for the gaps at home. I have the time and money and wherewithal to do it. Not many people do.

[Amber]

I'm still not getting why grammars are being vilified. Surely the questions in grammar test should be capable of being answered by all, no matter what their background; it's not just rich kids that get taught about fractions or full stops. .

They are being vilified, if such they are, because of the very premise underlying them - that it is OK to select children by ability for a particular type of schooling.

As for there being no academies/comps/free schools being available in the areas near grammars, that isn't the case in Gloucestershire.

The point being made is that once you have selection, there is no such thing as 'comprehensive', which by its essence includes all children and all abilities. No one is saying that we have a shortage of academies and free schools - quite the contrary, they are proliferating, as former comprehensive schools change their funding arrangements and become academies, with all that implies. To what extent most parents are able to exercise their supposed 'choice' of school is a difficult point, however.

[Stressed?Moi?]

pippi, I'm not sure what they are complaining about; we all had the same amount of time to "prepare" for the new CEM test in our area. You shouldn't need a notice period if the child is capable. Now the old VR-only tests is a different matter and it is right, I believe, for the format to have changed. Testing on maths, English, VR and non-VR I would say would be a good indication of overall ability.

[mystery]

And that is, I am afraid, an assumption that could be false. Yes, the old Bucks test was a bit weird being VR only but it doesn't mean that any "new" 11 plus test that someone dreams up is the bees knees either in terms of making sure that "able children" (whatever they are) don't fail.

The test (and there were many different ones then) was one of the reasons that the grammar system was scrapped nationwide. I don't think that psychometric testing has changed in nature to the point that anyone can get a test out of their handbag and go "this one's perfect". Read any diagnostic test handbook produced by GL assessment or any other reputable test developer / publisher and it's clear that it's an error prone "measurement".

[Amber]

And that is, I am afraid, an assumption that could be false. Yes, the old Bucks test was a bit weird being VR only but it doesn't mean that any "new" 11 plus test that someone dreams up is the bees knees either in terms of making sure that "able children" (whatever they are) don't fail.

The test (and there were many different ones then) was one of the reasons that the grammar system was scrapped nationwide. I don't think that psychometric testing has changed in nature to the point that anyone can get a test out of their handbag and go "this one's perfect". Read any diagnostic test handbook produced by GL assessment or any other reputable test developer / publisher and it's clear that it's an error prone "measurement".

Indeed. And that is before you even get down to nerves/illness/genuine and fabricated extenuating circumstances/age standardisation and a multitude of other non-quantifiables. Is it really worth it? Are there maybe better uses of what in the olden days was called 'public money'?

[mystery]

Yes, people seem to forget that public money goes on education and become really quite parochial about what schools they should have in their own town and who should be able to attend them. The local councillors love it, of course, because instead of having to develop a true understanding of education they can just bowl along with whatever the latest local mass misunderstanding is and cadge some more votes, they hope.

So Bucks gets a new test from a different test publisher that might be a bit better than the old test but more through luck than anything and that they could probably have procured years ago from the old test provider if they had thought to ask, Kent gets a slightly different test from GL that might or not be a bit better, and Kent goes one step further and votes that it will spend some money building a grammar annex in Sevenoaks and a couple of years later gets planning permission to build and empty one with no school in sight to occupy it. No tax payers (local or national) seem to go "hey, how can you do that with public money at the moment?"

And most parents go along with whatever it is because it's easier to do so, to their benefit to do so, or because they (mistakenly) feel that their family isn't clever / capable of good grades / hasn't got time for all of this because of more pressing priorities.

I wonder which particular 11plus test Charles would have passed and failed. They all give different results. Even the same test gives different results depending how you cobble together the scores from the different parts of it and the rules that you set about what constitutes a pass.