Thatcher poll: worst or best

ukcarper

michael1983l wrote: »

You can have streamed classes but the other kids still influence the brighter pupils thus holding them back a little anyway. Eliteism can be a good thing if used properly.

Secondary schools can focus their resources in areas that will help the kids best like craft design and technology, wheras the Grammar schools can do the same with Mathematics, science and English. It makes perfect sense.

Your falling into the same old trap anyone who fails 11+ is incapable of anything academic.

michael1983l

ukcarper wrote: »

Your falling into the same old trap anyone who fails 11+ is incapable of anything academic.

I never said they were incapable, I said that they could channel resources into areas they are more likely to excell at. They have already proven that they are not in the top 50% acedemically at the 11+ stage. I went to a secondary school and most of my peers went on to do something phsyical, like in the building game. Wheras most of my friends that went to Grammar have ended up in an office type enviroment or in design or science. I realise they are isolated examples and do not mean much but the idea is there. What is debatable is if they develop later but there is a 12+ too.

ukcarper

michael1983l wrote: »

I never said they were incapable, I said that they could channel resources into areas they are more likely to excell at. They have already proven that they are not in the top 50% acedemically at the 11+ stage. I went to a secondary school and most of my peers went on to do something phsyical, like in the building game. Wheras most of my friends that went to Grammar have ended up in an office type enviroment or in design or science. I realise they are isolated examples and do not mean much but the idea is there. What is debatable is if they develop later but there is a 12+ too.

It was a lot less than 50% and all they have show is that at 11 they couldn't pass an exam there was no 12+ when they were universal there was suppose to be a way that if you developed later you could change but in very rarely happened.

grizzly1911

ukcarper wrote: »

The way Comprehensives were sold was that that students would be streamed by ablity further more this would be on a per subject basis. I feel this would have been a good system much better than giving someone a test at 11. Unfortunately this doesn't seem to be the way it has worked out.

michael1983l wrote: »

You can have streamed classes but the other kids still influence the brighter pupils thus holding them back a little anyway. Eliteism can be a good thing if used properly.

Secondary schools can focus their resources in areas that will help the kids best like craft design and technology, wheras the Grammar schools can do the same with Mathematics, science and English. It makes perfect sense.

I went to a school that was purpose built as one of the original comprehensives. It was in in good location and had an above average wealth catchment are that surrounded it. We were streamed and during the course of the first year people were juggled between streams/forms. The first stream was definitely grammar standard and many in the second stream were good too. Most academic classes were restricted to the top 3 streams. The less able in the bottom 4 streams. We still had O level and CSE which needed differentiated teaching practices.

The results were comparable to the Town Grammar School. The local public school was classed as being a year behind. A few of kids, whose parents had fallen on hard times, got transferred to us and struggled.

I knew a number of kids who went to the grammar who didn't do that well from it.

A level students were predominately from the top 3 streams in reducing proportions.

We had a good number that went to university, nothing like the volumes we see today. Many of those that didn't go still ended up in good well remunerated jobs and progressed up the ladder of life.

Towards the end of my time there, probably due to demographics as much as political manipulation,the school was given a wedge from the town centre as a catchment area. Intake quality fell as did the level of attainment.


The idea in itself wasn't bad the way it subsequently got manipulated was the thing that eroded their position.

You can't blame the school for all ills it is still down to the parents to make the effort.

michael1983l

ukcarper wrote: »

It was a lot less than 50% and all they have show is that at 11 they couldn't pass an exam.

All they have to do at 16 is show they cannot pass an exam too and at 18 and then every year after that until 24 if they do a degree.

What is your point?

Should we scrap exams all together and leave pupils grades to the opinion of their teacher?

Or should they just pull a letter out of a hat instead?

michael1983l

Grizzly I do not disagree with anything you have said. What however is the difference between seperating kids by stream or seperating them by school? Very little.

ash28

Old_Git wrote: »

who was the best,and why where they the best

IMHO, probably Clement Attlee....he instituted real reforms that benefited every person in the country, not just some of them.

He over saw the rebuilding of the country after the war - managed to build about 3 million council houses....managed to keep unemployment low despite demobilisation and a shortage of materials, a currency crisis and the winter of 1947....

He hated the poverty, unfairness and the waste he saw as a young man in East London. He said years later that what made him a socialist was hearing his youth club boys say, not ''I'm going home to supper,'' but ''I'm going home to see if there is any supper.''

He did more than any other single person to abolish real poverty in the UK, and it has been abolished, whatever else may have gone wrong since.

Yes, he nationalised some industries and utilities - but they probably (at the time) needed to be under state control...coal, gas, electricity for instance.

From the Number 10 website....I thought it would fairly unbiased.....

http://www.number10.gov.uk/past-prime-ministers/clement-attlee/

Margaret Thatcher would possibly be number 3 for me....after Churchill and that would be for his premiership during the war....when Attlee was his deputy PM and looked after the domestic side and the rest when Churchill was in a depression.

I voted for her in 1979 - I never voted for her again.

michael1983l

Ash did you miss the Since 1973 part of the question then?

ukcarper

michael1983l wrote: »

All they have to do at 16 is show they cannot pass an exam too and at 18 and then every year after that until 24 if they do a degree.

What is your point?

Should we scrap exams all together and leave pupils grades to the opinion of their teacher?

Or should they just pull a letter out of a hat instead?

No you are completely missing the point you were judged at 11 and if you developed later it was much harder to progress

I failed 11+ which meant the only science I was taught was biology and I had to teach myself 0 level maths with a small amount of help from teacher. I went on to get good qualifications
in electronic and electrical engineering.

michael1983l

ukcarper wrote: »

No you are completely missing the point you were judged at 11 and if you developed later it was much harder to progress

I failed 11+ which meant the only science I was taught was biology and I had to teach myself 0 level maths with a small amount of help from teacher. I went on to get good qualifications
in electronic and electrical engineering.

Well I failed my 11+ and was taught all 3 sciences, maybe you just went to a bad school?

It is not harder to progress if you develop later, like I said earlier I have gone on to earn a higher wage than all of my friends that went to grammar. I also am an Electronic Engineer. Just because I developed later does not mean that I wish those that develop earlier to be disadvantaged too just out of spite.