An Evening With... Jeremy Corbyn

ukcarper

TrickyTree83 wrote: »

This already happens in the UK.

At 16 (post GCSE) in selection for further education (6th form/college) and after further education at 18 in selection for University based on the grades you achieve. Why is testing to separate the bright from the dull acceptable at 16 and 18 but not at 11?

If you, I, or anyone else has children who wish to participate in a school system that involves selection - why can't we? Why is that opportunity not freely available?

As parents:

We choose where our children live.

We choose how to bring them up.

We choose (largely) what they eat and drink.

We choose (again largely) what media they consume.

We are able to choose private healthcare for them over NHS provision.

We can choose to privately tutor them rather than use state funded schools.

Why then must people be denied the choice to be able to attend a state school which selects pupils purely on merit in the same way Colleges and Universities do?

That is not the same perhaps you should read this

https://fullfact.org/education/grammar-schools-and-social-mobility-whats-evidence/

MobileSaver

ukcarper wrote: »

pick an arbitrary age and test apply this to all children then if they don't pass condem they to a future of poor education and opportunities.

Alternatively... pick an arbitrary age and test apply this to all children then if they don't pass they carry on as they do now in the same comprehensive schools currently available.

The kids who for whatever reason pass the test have the opportunity to go to a grammar school and receive an even better education. Why would we as a country not want to encourage gifted children to excel in the best environment possible?

It is nonsensical and unrealistic to strive for all children to receive the same education on the assumption that they all have the same potential and predilection for bettering themselves. There has to be a point at which the brain surgeons and bin men of this world go their separate ways in school and at age 10 with the 11-plus seems as good a time as any.

TrickyTree83

ukcarper wrote: »

That is not the same perhaps you should read this

https://fullfact.org/education/grammar-schools-and-social-mobility-whats-evidence/

This talks about attainment gaps.

Pupils at grammar schools have higher attainment.

Similarly, Luke Sibieta at the IFS says that grammars "seem to offer an opportunity to improve and stretch the brightest pupils, but seem likely to come at the cost of increasing inequality".

And the journalist Chris Cook wrote recently that “the minority of children streamed into the grammars do better. The remaining majority of children—who are not educated in grammars—do slightly worse”.

Inequality of what measure? That the bright are not pulled down to the same level as those who are not? Why should we penalise those who can because those who cannot feel it unfair that they cannot?

Should we cease the Olympics because I cannot compete with the athletes?

Why does removing the brightest pupils from a school mean the other pupils do worse?

I don't for a second believe that if you remove pupils from a comprehensive school who would attain A grades immediately means that the other pupils in the class who would have attained B grades drop down to C grades because those who were attaining A grades are now in a grammar school. Those same pupils who were attaining B grades should still be doing so, regardless of where the brighter pupils are being taught.

Their argument appears to be to pull down the brightest and best at their expense to help the other pupils achieve higher grades instead of realising their own potential.

ruggedtoast

TrickyTree83 wrote: »

This already happens in the UK.

At 16 (post GCSE) in selection for further education (6th form/college) and after further education at 18 in selection for University based on the grades you achieve. Why is testing to separate the bright from the dull acceptable at 16 and 18 but not at 11?

If you, I, or anyone else has children who wish to participate in a school system that involves selection - why can't we? Why is that opportunity not freely available?

As parents:

We choose where our children live.

We choose how to bring them up.

We choose (largely) what they eat and drink.

We choose (again largely) what media they consume.

We are able to choose private healthcare for them over NHS provision.

We can choose to privately tutor them rather than use state funded schools.

Why then must people be denied the choice to be able to attend a state school which selects pupils purely on merit?

Firstly, because the proposed model of grammar schools won't select children on merit. It will select them on arbitrary testing criteria which are determined largely by how socioeconomically privileged they are.

If you want to select them on merit that at least, partly, can't be prepped for, then select them on IQ tests. This is how grammars did select for a while and there was a middle class rebellion because Rupert and Camilla weren't getting in, so it was hastily changed back to an exam that one could hire a private tutor to coach for.

Secondly, because the State (which I am aware you would prefer disappeared so you could live a Lord of the Flies existence having your glasses broken and being chased through the forest) has an obligation to children
to ensure they are treated fairly irrespective of their familial patronage.

This does not involve abandoning them to an educational scrapheap because they have had a poor start in life and are then punished for it almost the moment they hit double figures in age.

Not that you care about 11 year olds who have selfishly failed to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, but I used to work for an exam board and randomly sampled Key Stage 2 papers.

The difference between the "posh" schools and the inner city / sink schools is like night and day. Some of the bad school kids have had a go at answering the questions creatively, with clearly having no clue what they are meant to do, but most of the papers are pitiful.

Whereas their peers in the brick school up the road have passed almost every question perfectly. In exactly the same way, because all 11 years of their life has been spent training them to do so.

Under May;s regime every single one of the poor kids would be condemned to some holding pen designed to keep them off the streets until they could start working in McDonalds.

11 years is just not long enough to make a dent in a disadvantaged background and doing so is nothing more than divisive social engineering designed to disempower the already poor. As Theresa May with her appalling background as a vicars daughter (which laughably most of the cabinet would consider to be an economically deprived beginning) is well aware.

TrickyTree83

MobileSaver wrote: »

Alternatively... pick an arbitrary age and test apply this to all children then if they don't pass they carry on as they do now in the same comprehensive schools currently available.

The kids who for whatever reason pass the test have the opportunity to go to a grammar school and receive an even better education. Why would we as a country not want to encourage gifted children to excel in the best environment possible?

It is nonsensical and unrealistic to strive for all children to receive the same education on the assumption that they all have the same potential and predilection for bettering themselves. There has to be a point at which the brain surgeons and bin men of this world go their separate ways in school and at age 10 with the 11-plus seems as good a time as any.

Exactly, we already do this at 16 and then again at 18.

Why not improve the process and do it earlier where it has been proven to improve the results of those who can.

Clearly everyone here is more than happy to keep the current system of selections at ages 16 and 18?

I've not heard anything to the contrary yet, I wonder why these two selections are considered acceptable, splitting the can from the cannot's, yet another one at an earlier age to increase attainment is looked on with disdain.

ukcarper

MobileSaver wrote: »

Alternatively... pick an arbitrary age and test apply this to all children then if they don't pass they carry on as they do now in the same comprehensive schools currently available.

The kids who for whatever reason pass the test have the opportunity to go to a grammar school and receive an even better education. Why would we as a country not want to encourage gifted children to excel in the best environment possible?

It is nonsensical and unrealistic to strive for all children to receive the same education on the assumption that they all have the same potential and predilection for bettering themselves. There has to be a point at which the brain surgeons and bin men of this world go their separate ways in school and at age 10 with the 11-plus seems as good a time as any.

That will not happen funds and resources will be diverted to grammar schools at the expense of existing comps.

TrickyTree83

ruggedtoast wrote: »

Firstly, because the proposed model of grammar schools won't select children on merit. It will select them on arbitrary testing criteria which are determined largely by how socioeconomically privileged they are.

If you want to select them on merit that at least, partly, can't be prepped for, then select them on IQ tests. This is how grammars did select for a while and there was a middle class rebellion because Rupert and Camilla weren't getting in, so it was hastily changed back to an exam that one could hire a private tutor to coach for.

Secondly, because the State (which I am aware you would prefer disappeared so you could live a Lord of the Flies existence having your glasses broken and being chased through the forest) has an obligation to children
to ensure they are treated fairly irrespective of their familial patronage.

This does not involve abandoning them to an educational scrapheap because they have had a poor start in life and are then punished for it almost the moment they hit double figures in age.

Not that you care about 11 year olds who have selfishly failed to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, but I used to work for an exam board and randomly sampled Key Stage 2 papers.

The difference between the "posh" schools and the inner city / sink schools is like night and day. Some of the bad school kids have had a go at answering the questions creatively, with clearly having no clue what they are meant to do, but most of the papers are pitiful.

Whereas their peers in the brick school up the road have passed almost every question perfectly. In exactly the same way, because all 11 years of their life has been spent training them to do so.

Under May;s regime every single one of the poor kids would be condemned to some holding pen designed to keep them off the streets until they could start working in McDonalds.

11 years is just not long enough to make a dent in a disadvantaged background and doing so is nothing more than divisive social engineering designed to disempower the already poor. As Theresa May with her appalling background as a vicars daughter (which laughably most of the cabinet would consider to be an economically deprived beginning) is well aware.

Completely happy for it to be based on IQ.

Completely. I would support that 100%.

It might not be what we get, but that can change. It's still not a good enough reason to outright ban the creation of selective schools for the brightest pupils even if in the beginning it's not effective enough in selecting purely on merit. I would prefer if these schools admitted 100% of their intake purely on test scores, Rupert and Camilla can jog on if they're not good enough, if Kyle and Crystal are good enough then good for them, I support them 100% in their endeavour to reach their full potential. That's the system I would like, and I welcome the steps taken towards it.

ukcarper

TrickyTree83 wrote: »

This talks about attainment gaps.

Pupils at grammar schools have higher attainment.



Inequality of what measure? That the bright are not pulled down to the same level as those who are not? Why should we penalise those who can because those who cannot feel it unfair that they cannot?

Should we cease the Olympics because I cannot compete with the athletes?

Why does removing the brightest pupils from a school mean the other pupils do worse?

I don't for a second believe that if you remove pupils from a comprehensive school who would attain A grades immediately means that the other pupils in the class who would have attained B grades drop down to C grades because those who were attaining A grades are now in a grammar school. Those same pupils who were attaining B grades should still be doing so, regardless of where the brighter pupils are being taught.

Their argument appears to be to pull down the brightest and best at their expense to help the other pupils achieve higher grades instead of realising their own potential.

Yes look at graph for all but the richest the attainment in selective areas is non existent or minimal and for the poorest it's lower.

ukcarper

TrickyTree83 wrote: »

Their argument appears to be to pull down the brightest and best at their expense to help the other pupils achieve higher grades instead of realising their own potential.

That is not the argument. Good comps do not pull down the brightest and give the less bright a better education than they would get if selection was reintroduced.

TrickyTree83

ukcarper wrote: »

Yes look at graph for all but the richest the attainment in selective areas is non existent or minimal and for the poorest it's lower.

I'd like to see the data they had for this graph. Since reading a publication from the UK parliament supports what I'm saying regarding attainment. And it's not slight, it's quite a large difference.

https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0ahUKEwjW4fSsyJPPAhVpBcAKHaSAAgwQFggeMAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.parliament.uk%2Fbriefing-papers%2Fsn01398.pdf&usg=AFQjCNHq3fMa3x-ymi1m7NPGM_AoQdH22w&sig2=jvXLnrMTVLNPGKKl4tNy4w&cad=rja

The table on Page 7 of the document is quite stark.

I'd also like to refer you to point 2.2 on page 5.