An Evening With... Jeremy Corbyn

TrickyTree83

I honestly don't get this obsession with denying grammar schools when we already have selection at ages 16 (College) and 18 (University).

Can someone who opposes grammar schools explain to me why it's ok to select at these two ages for these two types of institution, but it's not ok to select at 11 for a grammar school?

MobileSaver

ukcarper wrote: »

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

The only reference I've seen to funding is that the government will put an additional £50m into education for grammar schools, I've not seen anything saying they'll take money from existing schools.

Filo25

MobileSaver wrote: »

It seem to me that the model was ditched as part of general dumbing down malaise at the time; middle-class children benefited more than working-class children and we can't have that so let's bring everyone down to the same (lower) level.

I genuinely do not understand why people think giving the brighter pupils a better education is a bad thing?!?

I'm also not sure why so many are convinced that Grammar schools automatically offer a superior level of education.

Like any other types of school there are good and bad examples of Grammar schools, the one I went to now seems to get good results but was pretty awful when I went there, exam results at A Level would have been poor for a non-selective school, but were truly abysmal for a school that had its pick of the most able pupils at age 11, my sister ended up doing A Level retakes at the local Technical College and did far better there and said the teaching and general environment was much better.

Of course in my year they got to boast that they sent 6 pupils to Oxbridge to cover up the terrible results below that level, but if I am being truly brutally honest I don't think the school had anything to do with any of the 6 of us getting Oxbridge places, it was just one of those years that had a fair few very able pupils at the top, one of them went on to get a PhD in Stephen Hawking's group at Cambridge and he's still the academically brightest person I've ever met!

mwpt

cells wrote: »

You are living in a world 20 years out of date. The highest quality Information and education is now totally free and accessible to everyone in the world with an internet connection. You now have world class universities who have their lectures online for free for anyone.

Any child who wants to learn anything is no longer limited by who their teacher was. Its a fantastic achievement because there are a lot of crap teachers in all types of schools

The roles of schools are primarily cheap childcare

Unfortunately, this last part is true.

But fortunately, the first part of your post is also true. There are various initiatives to leverage all this by having course work done online at the students pace, with the teacher being more of a monitor and helper when students get stuck. I'd love for this to work out well, but we'll have to see.

However, having said that. Kids are kids. They are still shaped by their authority figures and so if they have parents who are lazy and disinterested in educating or disciplining their children, that child is at a disadvantage. And the practicalities of this are evident in trends in results.

We really need a good way of addressing the shocking parenting in this country instead of merely trying to shift this burden to the schools.

Conrad

I notice UKIP in-fighting continues. Dianne James or Suzanne Evans have long been my favourites to take the helm, and as Suzanne is presumably out of contention, it looks like a Dianne James leadership.


I hope she can restore order though. We need a party that challenges foreign aid (trade not aid) and no doubt still high immigration numbers in future.

ukcarper

MobileSaver wrote: »

The only reference I've seen to funding is that the government will put an additional £50m into education for grammar schools, I've not seen anything saying they'll take money from existing schools.

If that £50 million is available the fact that it is going to grammar schools shows than funding would be diverted away from comps.

ukcarper

TrickyTree83 wrote: »

The percentage of pupils attaining low grades at a selective school is lower than the admission rate of disadvantaged pupils. So it's fair to say that a proportion of those disadvantaged pupils attain high grades within this system.

I agree that the current grammar entry tests are not perfect, I also agree that at the moment, most likely due to their locations, that the majority of pupils attending these schools come from a background of privilege.

That doesn't mean that increasing the intake of disadvantaged pupils into a grammar system would not translate into those pupils achieving better grades than they do under a comprehensive system does it?

Still doesn't prove that they would not have done aswell in a good comp.

ukcarper

TrickyTree83 wrote: »

I honestly don't get this obsession with denying grammar schools when we already have selection at ages 16 (College) and 18 (University).

Can someone who opposes grammar schools explain to me why it's ok to select at these two ages for these two types of institution, but it's not ok to select at 11 for a grammar school?

If you don't get good enough A levels you can retake and if you pass you can still go to university, if you fail your 11 plus that's it.

cells

mwpt wrote: »

Unfortunately, this last part is true.

We really need a good way of addressing the shocking parenting in this country instead of merely trying to shift this burden to the schools.

Most the problems in most peoples lives have nothing to do with not enough state handouts or state intervention. I'm not sure there is much that can be done to make people better quality people and parents.

If there was/are any positives to religion maybe this was one of them. A regular Sunday at church where everyone mixed and gave into authority. A kind of school for grown ups to try and teach them how grownups should conduct themselves.

setmefree2

Filo25 wrote: »

Does the London educational system (few grammar schools) not significantly outperform the Kent system (lots of Grammars)?

They do - by a million miles. The pupils in Kent's non- grammars perform well below the national average.