by Fiona Millar
End the 11 plus. It is not a new idea but it should shoot straight into the manifestos of all the mainstream political parties.
Why?
Because they all claim it doesn’t work.
Because we are in an era where affluent parents think nothing of shelling out between £3000 and £5000 to coach their children to pass the test.
Because the chances of a poor child getting into a grammar school are virtually nonexistent - they take on average 1- 2% of children on free school meals.
And above all because the children who fail the test, poor but also often with special needs, frequently they end up in secondary modern schools, , many of which do a heroic job but still struggle with an unbalanced intake of children who feel the system has rejected them.
Read the voices of head teachers in selective areas, in the new pamphlet from Comprehensive Future ‘Ending Rejection at 11 plus’, talking about how this outdated, socially unjust system of segregating children affects their pupils.
They talk of children set against their friends, children who become so stressed over taking the test that they stop sleeping, start to wet the bed, often break down in tears and throw up over their test papers and sometimes become school phobic. Those that fail become passive and disillusioned. Sometimes their battered self esteem never recovers.
One secondary modern head from fully selective Kent explained:
"Children arrive here in year 7 - some have taken and failed the 11 plus, and they have markedly depressed self-perception as a result. A lot of pastoral support is needed to turn this around, and for some it is a life-long scar.
"Self perception of children in selective areas who either did not take the 11 plus or who failed it remains depressed for their whole educational career, regardless of their achievement subsequently."
The most coherent and passionate argument against a widespread return to selection in recent years came not (disappointingly) from a Labour front bencher, but from Tory MP David Willetts, now shadow universities spokesman, who told the CBI in 2007.
"We must break free from the belief that academic selection is any longer the way to transform the life chances of bright poor kids. This is a widespread belief but we just have to recognise that there is overwhelming evidence that such academic selection entrenches advantage, it does not spread it."
Only UKIP and the BNP now officially promote a return to selective education as party policy.
So with overt support for a return to an 11 plus test now limited to fringe extremist parties, why does it still continue in a quarter of all education authorities?
The answer is that most politicians, committed to raising the aspirations of the poorest pupils, have answered the ‘why?’ question but are still struggling with ’how?’
We have a response to that. Our pamphlet doesn’t just re-state the arguments against academic rejection; it contains a practical solution to of how rejection at eleven could be ended within ten years of a new government.
No ’good schools’ would be destroyed in a process that would entail minimal cost or disruption to existing pupils. Read the pamphlet at www.comprehensivefuture.org.uk to see how it can be done.
It’s a blueprint for a new government. All we need now is political courage.
‘Ending Rejection at 11 plus’ is published by Comprehensive Future.
Delicious
Digg
Reddit
Facebook
StumbleUpon
I don't hear you lot going for Muslim based faith schools. Cowardice or something? Or do you think that the CofE is fair game for your meddling?
Is it embarrassment that the CofE school our children went to produces results twice as good as the local 'comprehensive' yours went to?
And when the local school where you were/are a governor overspent by £500,000 where were you when accountability for this was laid at someone's door?
Oh, I went to that local school too - but when it was a dinosaur of a grammar school and took a range of classes including - yes truly! - working class kids who had the opportunity to get a better start n life than if they'd gone to a secondary modern.
And you're obviously yet another very very important personwho posts and disappears 'cos you're so important just like Milliband.
A lad changed from a local comp to our school in year 9,(3rd yr for the old people) and he said he preferred it, because when he wanted to work, he could. He was from the "council-estate" area down from the school, and my mom used to work with the youths in that area. He was one, and she said although he was still out with all the locals doing what they do, he did better and achieved more as a result of his grammar education.
I'm for them all the way.
I found that a silly question, as someone else has already said, the point of the 11+ is to skim the cream from the cake right? So if there are 100,000 places at a grammar school, and 1million kids pass the old standard to get in... they push the bar up. No matter how good the education system is, not ALL kids will get in, or there would be no point in a grammar school.
Also, the 11+ is an "aptitude" test, which tests not so much what you're taught , but more your intelligence.
I'd like to think I'm an example of why grammar schools should still be around. I was a "gifted and talented" child from sparkbrook in central Birmingham. I went to the primary school in Lee Bank which was allegedly rubbish, but I was still educated to the point where I was able to compete and gain a place in a grammar school even though I was outside the catchment area.
I used the 5 years there, didn't go to the 6th form, but ended up at The University of Nottingham.
I agree that a lot of the people in grammar schools are better off than people like me who I'd like to think they were designed for. But people with money are always going to do that. More grammar schools as stated above would mean more places for the people they are there to help.
My brother for example, didn't quite get into grammar school, but he wasn't ill, and depressed, he went on to do better than I did in his GCSE's and then onto college. If kids are getting ill over this at 11, I'd blame the pressure from parents before you blame the government. Remember, its an optional exam.
It comes down to the child. You cant really say the education system failed him unless EVERY child in the area failed. I was in primary school only 10 years ago, and I saw it happen. Some people wanted to work, and some people didn't. I wont lie, I wasn't the hardest worker, but luckily the 11+ saw my potential.
I know a lot of better of people who got the tutoring for grammar school, and failed, then went to private schools. Cuz their parents had the cash. Cash will always be an advantage, but it's not infallible. Its been shown in the past that, many of the children who try to get onto grammar schools tend to do better than those that don't. It apparently something to do with the drive to do well.
All children are lovable in their own way. There is no need to compete: we love you all equally. We don't care if you are disabled or not ready for reading yet. You don't have to earn love: it is free! Success is therefore guaranteed!
And we don't like little Boffy boys much either because they smell.
And it doesn't matter how many kids you have in a school because we love everyone even if we don't know their names.
End the misery of Grammar Schools where the best is expected. Who needs to read and write anyway? All you have to do is to write out, on a large chalkboard outside the Comprehensive School: BRINGING EXCELLENCE INTO THE 21ST CENTURY.
And any lies that the SATs are as stressful as the 11+ are just that - lies. They do not affect the specification and they do not make lessons boring.
Remember, darlings, Mummy loves you all!
So relax!
As for your allegation about Tory malevolence, its just yet more 'Tories eat babies' stuff. A bit like a right-winger saying that the only reason Labour so bitterly resisted council house sales was because they wanted to keep the proles under the control of the Labour Nomenklatura.
Could I ask, did you actually bother to read my comment or any of the comments I've made to this article about education, or did you speed read the comment above, decide to brand me a Conservative and blurt out something that sounded right for the occassion?
While you're in ranting mode it might be wise to consider that all that money you're recommending pumping into the system by abolishing this and taxing that - a rotten system is still a rotten system no matter how much money you pump into it. Now would you like to answer any of the questions I've put forward, maybe read up on what my actual views are or would you prefer to keep throwing tribal tags around until one sticks?
Do grammar schools overcome that hurdle? Nope. They just give a few kids from families that are well off, but not well off enough to pay for education, a chance to peer into the hallowed halls of the "elite", and for one or two of them to join them. And 11 is obscenely young to determine whether someone is "worthy" of that little chance or not too.
Scrap grammar schools altogether, scrap private school charitable status, raise tax further on private schools, plough all the money and more into state education, and let kids progress on the basis of ability, not parental wealth. I thought the Tories believed in meritocracy?
Ask yourself why grammer schools exist? If a grammer school gives a better standard of education than a comprehensive, ask yourself why? Why are all schools not equal? Why do all schools not give a certain level of education regardless of the wealth of the pupils parents?
This government, along with those before it have lectured that they are giving all children a good start, they are investing in education and Labour have the dubious honour of providing new buildings (whilst demolishing some historic buildings that needn't have been demolished - have proof, will provide if you doubt my word) Yet what government has delivered and given every child the chance to reach their full potential?
My eldest excels in mathematics, but who is to say my youngest won't be more practically minded and shun academic education? Will I be disappointed? Will I force her to conform to a system that rewards the rich and ignores the poor? Don't bet your shirt on it! I will give each of my children the chance they need to excel where they need to and if the education system continues to fail them, whilst taking that system to task I will ensure they each recieve what they need to be educated. They will all learn to read, write and do basic arithmetic by the time they are at secondary level. All will have the chance to explore what they are good at well before they have to decide what they want to concentrate on and when they decide what they want to concentrate on I will not allow others to dictate what subjects they must take to provide a league table with the results wanted by governments for statistical purposes.
Am I wrong to be like that? Am I some rich so in so who can afford to make those decisions based on priveledge or am I just another parent who wants his children to have the best start possible and afford them a chance in a world.
The test is not the problem, but all that surrounds the test and the very fact that parents who want their children to pass the test have to outlay more money to ensure it is passed proves that this government and those that have come before it are failing our young people before they even start. Chances of my kids wetting the bed over a test are slim because they already have confidence in what they do, and even though two of them are toddlers, they will be taught to a level where they could walk the test whether it exists or not. But will it be the great British education system that teaches them or will it be me, my wife and our relatives.
Ask yourself a couple of questions before you consider replying. If the state system is adequate and fit for purpose, who educates the children of front bench politicians? Who do our political elite trust to educate their own? Funnily enough you know the answer only too well, but choose to ignore it because it would point to an answer that doesn't suit the overall argument, much the same as when you ask a front bench politician the same questions face to face.
What a star you are.
I was too young to notice at the time I spent (1955-62) at Maltby Grammar School, but on reflection, I think you are right - lots of children on the school roll-call having miners and other working class as parents.
I am sure the same went for Wath, Mexborough and Thorne GS - after all, you can't have much of a greater predominance of the working class than there was at that time in South Yorkshire in the catchment areas of those schools.
Me? Definitely not middle class - as the expression goes, we 'didn't have a pot to p*ss in.'
Which reminds me : apprentices, in days gone by, actually had to pay for their apprenticeship. Are you advocating a return to those days?
An overlooked fact is that the great push for comprehensives came from the aspiring middle classes in areas where there were also significant working class populations - the mc was seeing the increasingly affluent and ambitious working class children take more and more grammar places. Wilson inclusion of a commitment to comprehensives in his 1964 manifesto helped to swing the middle class vote in he marginals. The claim that comprehensive education was an ideological experiment in levelling downwards is somewhat revisionist.
Do us a favour... labour have been in power for the past dozen years - that labour and conservatives both have a policy entitled 'comprehensive education' cannot be used to lay any blame for the past decade at the feet of the conservatives.
Sharing a policy title says absolutely nothing about its content.
The "indiffernce" from the Tories was because they simply did not want poor able kids to have as good an education that they were paying for. So privatise the grammar schools and keep them to themselves. That is what has happened, anyway.
I despise the idea of private education, but I despise the idea of a one-size-fits-all education more. We looked at a few independent schools just in case she failed to get into the grammar school and found that all but one of them were schools that wanted to create nice young ladies who rode ponies. The exception was an independent school that had been a grammar, and they had an entrance exam too. The fees of all of the independent schools were more than I could afford.
But my daughter passed the 11-plus, and after the first day, she returned home so very happy. I asked her how her day had been. She said that she had spent lunch time in the library reading. I asked "on your own?", she said "no, there were lots of girls, and the older girls helped us to find the books to read". And she's been that happy for the last 6 years. This is not everyone's ideal of a perfect day at school, but it was my daughter's ideal, and it would not have happened in a "sports specialist college". There's nothing wrong with a school for kids who like sport, but it is not the school for my daughter.
The charge that can be levied at the Tories was one of indifference. Because most of them were privately educated, they didn't really fight for the Grammars the way they should have.
Tell me, are you now suggesting that everyone who enters an NHS hospital should be treated for all of the common illnesses and then taken away and given a few minutes treatment for their *actual* illness? I mean, giving people treatment tailored to their illness must be elitist, according to you. I know someone who had a liver transplant, how elitist is that?
The point about selection is not elitism, it is about giving the child the best education for their abilities and needs.
As to your appalling use of "sink school", it is not the children that are the issue, and putting the 5% that go into the grammar schools into those "sink schools" would have no effect. You're looking at the wrong cause of the problem.
I have a friend whose child has learning difficulties, he's a bright boy, but has problems concentrating in class. Yet the local comprehensive has no special facilities for his child's needs. The local Catholic school does have a special needs unit, but to get into that school you have to be Catholic (well, d'oh!). And before you mention it, the child's special needs are at the bottom of the entrance criteria for that school. Why is that? It is because if the child's educational needs were paramount (as they should be) then the school would be accused of academic selection, which as we know is a dirty word. So my friend decided to go to church a few times, and get his boy baptised, and yes, he found that his son got a place in the school where his educational needs are best addressed. Every parent wants that. No parent wants their child to be treated as the average student.
Selection works for all children, it is just a word, it means selecting the best education for the child. The comprehensive system is one-size-fits-all.
If you don't expect your education/training to pay for itself
If a doctor, dentist, engineer cost more to educate than the good they can do, then who (apart from you) would argue that it is a good investment?
Be fair, comprehensives are as much a Conservative policy as Labour. The first council to go comprehensive were Conservative. As I mentioned below, the policy was chosen because it facilitated the privatisation of education.
But note that the tone of Millar's post is not that grammar schools have failed, but that there is a problem with secondary modern schools. If that is the case, then the solution is to fix secondary modern schools. It seems pure madness to close successful schools because an other school in the vicinity is failing.
"Past (say) 16, if you don't expect your education/training to pay for itself then it is an indulgence and should not be undertaken at public expense."
Doctors? Dentists? Engineers?
Tuition fees, anyone?
But once you are past (about) 16 you need to explain why you need a subsidy... I never had one, so don't expect to be made to pay for anyone elses.
Past (say) 16, if you don't expect your education/training to pay for itself then it is an indulgence and should not be undertaken at public expense.
You are missing my point which is that all education and all healthcare is provided by the private sector. As you and TT keep telling us Labourites, a private sector company either delivers value for money or it goes belly-up. That's the 'discipline of the market.'
If that's the case, and education and healthcare are regarded as 'necessities of life', then wages would have to adjust so that people will be able to afford these necessities of life, along with the other necessities such as a roof over your head, food, clothing, utilities, transport, insurance (all responsible subjects of Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth will take out insurance) and, I may as well throw in, enough to make savings to provide for old age.
No funny tricks - I promise.
No funny business, I guarantee.
"But education is not needed by all ...".
If you don't mind, could you please expand on that rather breathtaking statement?
As I said in my original post, at least in the past a poor kid with ability could be given a great life chance by attending a Grammar. Now, the horrible truth is your education is decided entirely by the affluence of your parents.
The Tory idea of following the Swedish model - giving all parents a voucher of equal worth and allowing new schools to be formed on demand would lessen this iniquity and also abolish the fixed percentage issue you allude to.
New Labour, of course, has no intellectual answer to that - witness Ed Balls pathetic column on the subject in the Guardian recently - but is not the slightest bit interested in upsetting its vested interests of the Teaching Unions or the educational establishment.
As a first step health/education money would *have* to be ring fenced for those purposes (use it or lose it, or top it up if you like...)
Ferraris and Caribbean holidays are not necessities of life. Health and education are.
What I'm "advocating" is that health and education should be taken out of government's hands ie none of your hard-earned money goes to educate those snotty-nosed children (note ; not 'kids' - goats have 'kids' and people have 'children') on the sink estate two miles a way, nor to provide health-care for their thoroughly objectionable parents, but instead everyone has the wherewithal, via earnings, to purchase their own high standard education and health care that a competitive market in education and health-care would provide.
As you both seem to be ardent 'free marketeers', how could you possibly object?
The bastardised system we have today isn't what the post-war tripartite system was meant to be. It's a combination of attitudes like that displayed by people like yourself Fiona, consistent meddling and the laws of unintended consequences that have brought on this sorry situation. These have removed the social ladders for the poor, not the system which was modelled on that in continental Europe. It's only unfortunate that the third part of the system, the technical schools never made it in big numbers.
All the decades of Grammar school bashing has achieved is to swap genuine selection on merit, regardless of means and accessible to all (Grammar School) for selection by wealth (house prices near good schools or buying you way out of the state system altogether) or religious prejudice (faith schools).
You must be so proud of this "achievement". I think the reading age assessments (which are constant and can't be fiddled like exams) tell you all you need to know about Labour's 12 year record on education.
The taxpayer is already paying about £1,750 per person per year for health - send me the money for mine.
We can sort out changing the tax raising system later, right now I am talking about the way the tax is spent - just give me the cash. No middle men, minimum administration overhead.
In addition she saw classmates having additional help and she was made to help such children. How crazy is that?
She is now at a Grammar school where she had to sit an exam and come in the top 40 of those of the 1200 girls who sat the exam. Luckily she did and has gained top grades in all her external exams to date.
There is no crowd control required in her school as the girls want to learn. They are also personable fun girls who have lives outside of their studies (she'd be flying with the RAF today if I did not have a broken ankle) but maybe that's because as parents we have offered her sister and her the opportunity to do so as we are educated, have a moral sense of the world, ethics and want them to experience things that we did not as children.
I am responsible to earn money to support,educate,nuture myself and my family others should do the same and quite frankly if they can't then I will not be helping them out at all ever.
'We need to find a way to taylor every childs need to a indervidal plan as every child is different and learns in different way'
This is already in operation Ricki, those who wish and can pay pay for private schooling, others choose selective schools and the rest-well are thier parents really that bothered?
If we pay variable rates of tax for education provision why should we not be all given the value of state education in vouchers to use as we will? Some better off parents can add to the voucher level, othe rparents will use just the value of the voucher. That is free choice and fairness.
"Give me the money ...."
No, TT : give all wage-earners the money, whatever their station in life.
Let's assume there is no state education, nor NHS. Have you ever stopped to think or work out what the minimum wage would have to be so that everyone could "make their choice" in "competitive markets" providing healthcare and education?
Down the road from me, the local secondary independent school charges £10,000 per year per child. For a two-children, two parent family that means a required income of £20,000 a year for education alone.
Add in health care fees, food, utilities, mortgage (or rent), transport, clothing, house maintenance, insurance for all sorts of events : what do you think the minimum income required would be for a two-parent, two children family? £35,000, £40,000 a year? I haven't even included 'small luxuries.'
I don't think that the current distribution of income in this country currently supports the 'private route' for everyone.
Because the chances of a poor child getting into a grammar school are virtually nonexistent - they take on average 1- 2% of children on free school meals."
That's because there are so few grammar schools. Affluent parents will tend to find the best education possible for their child, but there are only so many affluent parents out there. Make more grammar schools, so there are far more places for intelligent poor kids, and more will get in.
"And above all because the children who fail the test, poor but also often with special needs, frequently they end up in secondary modern schools, , many of which do a heroic job but still struggle with an unbalanced intake of children who feel the system has rejected them."
So now we have to pretend that all kids are academically gifted? Why not make a system where there is a viable, vocational route into the trades and job market in general for those who don't want to read classics at uni? Cater for kids with special needs - it's possible, private schools do it all the time. And good kids don't drag bad kids up; bad kids drag good kids down. It takes just one troublemaker, who might do great in a vocational route, but hates French lessons, to drag the whole class down.
"They talk of children set against their friends, children who become so stressed over taking the test that they stop sleeping, start to wet the bed, often break down in tears and throw up over their test papers and sometimes become school phobic. Those that fail become passive and disillusioned. Sometimes their battered self esteem never recovers."
As I said before - offer them a viable vocational route, stop teaching all kids that it's uni or nothing. Segregation on the grounds of effort and intelligence has to happen eventually, be it in school, university or the job market. The later you leave it, the harder it is to choose a different route.
Comprehensives will do nothing for "bright poor kids" or "bright rich kids". They have failed. Labour's education policy has failed. Targets like 50% of kids in university do not help either. How about trying to find the best for each child through selective education, because sticking them all in one school doesn't work.
I think I'll frame this one.
Is that a roundabout way of saying that primary education is at such a poor level that it can not be expected to help all children to pass a test, so therefore we should abolish the test rather than increase the standard of education?
I'm not saying I agree with the test, but has anyone ever bothered to wonder why children would get stressed or wet the bed over this test? Could it be that they are wholly unprepared both education and confidence wise about their ability to pass the test? And could that have something to do with the poor level of education at primary level?
Let me guess, I'm wrong. Primary school education is excellent under New Labour and the poor level of education that my son has recieved is due to localised issues? He doesn't need the extra tuition he is given because it is perfectly okay for a school system not to teach a child how to write properly or to construct basic sentences by the time they leave primary school? My son excels at mathematics, but rather than encouragement he is held back so those less capable can catch up so all the kids can be at the same (low) level. British history lessons are thin on the ground, but I'm sure my son can tell me about the many religions in other countries and possibly even some of their history as well.
From my experience the school system is so consumed with satisfying diversity and small scale social engineering that the actual education element of the school system is left to those who can afford private tutors. So it really isn't the financial constraints that holds back the poorer children, it is the very education system that is causing the problem by not being fit for purpose.
Political courage? Political courage would be putting the child before the politics. Political courage would be giving a child what they need to pass the test, whether the test stays in place or not. Political courage would be to allow a child to reach their full potential rather than attempting to give every child the exact same level of education, regardless of individual talent. But its too expensive, too difficult and the mixed results from schools would be really rather difficult to spin wouldn't they?
Go out into the garden. Have a look around. Plants that need sunlight do not thrive in the shade. Plants that need sunlight and get it thrive. Roses need a fertile soil, ferns need the shade.
It really is so simple. I suspect your garden has been concreted over and painted green.
The idea of ‘choice’ in education is all too often ill-defined. Parents can exercise a preference in terms of schools: few can exercise any real choice. A selective system of schooling does not lead to diversity of provision it simply leads to division. Selection is not the creation of choice rather it is the denial of choice for the many. A selective system (be it based on ability or aptitude) does not help promote a diverse system of schooling; it simply helps perpetuate division in society as a whole.
There now appears to be cross-party consensus that selective schools are not escape routes from poverty, do not offer good value for money and do not help raise standards overall. It is now time to address, once and for all, the archaic and socially exclusive policy of academic selection. I doubt David Cameron has the stomach for it but what about Gordon Brown?
When you were interviewed on Woman's Hour you said that you were a "pushy parent" with the implication that that was why your kids got the education they needed at your local comprehensive. Why should it be the case that only the kids of "pushy parents" can get the education according to their ability and needs? Instead, each child should get the education they need, targeted to their ability. Inevitably you are going to have to test a child to see that.
The pointless SAT tests are not abi=out the individual child's ability, instead, kids are forced to take these tests so that you can create the pointless league tables. How can you complain about the 11-plus that will benefit the child by targeting the education that they need, but you are in favour of SATs which have no bearing on the individual child's education? By the way, the sort of parents that you say are paying thousands on tutoring for the 11-plus, if they live in a fully comprehensive area they are paying thousands on tutoring their kids for SATs. Pointless? Yes, but if they want to waste their money...
Your attempt to try and make it seem that grammar schools are private education because of "tutoring" is disingenuous. The 11-plus papers that are used in most selection exams are chosen to make tutoring irrelevant, the exams are there to highlight academic ability and not the ability to pass a test. If parents want to pay for tutoring then that is their money they are wasting, and of course, it does employ a graduate who otherwise would push up the employment statistics, so you should be pleased.
The point is that grammar school education is free-at-the-point-of-delivery. The push for a fully one-size-fits-all comprehensive system resulted in most grammar schools becoming independent. In effect, this is the privatisation of education. You should be ashamed for starting the privatisation of a service that should be free for everyone.
And you cannot blame grammar schools for that as the number of such schools has hardly changed in that time.
Perhaps you should concern yourselves more with the poor teaching and parenting that ensure poor children stay poor?
1) an unbalanced intake of children
Can you explain what that means and what negative impact it has - as I see it schools always have a range of abilities, how high the top and how low the bottom is doesn't seem relevant to an individual childs outcome.
2) They talk of children set against their friends, children who become so stressed over taking the test that they stop
You think one group of children should be held back so another group do not get upset? Who do you live your life for? If you live for others then let me know an I will send you a list of things I require of you.
We are happy, they are happy and the school is happy.
Force my kids to go to a comprehensive and mix with deliquents and kids who don't care and I'll just go and pay for private education. Either that or ensure that the we are in a solidly middle class catchement area for a high school that has a solidly middle class intake.
Why don't you on the left instead of bothering those parents (middle class on the whole) who commit to ensuring their kids behave and get good academic educations and go sort out the sink comprehensives and underclass families instead? Of course you've failed in that over 12 years so now it's my responsibility? No thanks my kids and no one elses are my responsibility.
The testing and exam regime needs radical change , We need to encourage children to learn , I was put of schooling because i not get intrested in it as i had to many questions and there was not enough quality time to help everyone hence i ended up playing truant for most of my secondry school life .
At the time my parents where breaking up so it didnt help , I think that we have put too much pressaure on children and they need support , But everywhere in the media we seem to demonise them , I think it is the culture and peer pressaure .
We need to find a way to taylor every childs need to a indervidal plan as every child is different and learns in different way , i think if we could expand that and help the parents support there childs learning then that might help.
ricki