NBTTND: FAO Old Git ref your grammer skool post

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"Do you not believe in ability streaming?
If you don't, you're an idiot

If you do, what's the real difference between putting all the brightest children in a different set, and putting them all in a different school?"

Quite a few real and significant differences, but the top two that stand out for me are:

1) Not everyone is good at everything. Streaming within a single school enables a pupil who is gifted in (say) the arts, but not as gifted in (say) mathematics, to be setted according to his/her abilities in those individual subjects. The alternative is that said pupil gets stuck in a New Secondary Modern (or whatever is brought back to enable more grammars to be opened) because s/he couldn't pass the 11+ due to a poor grasp of numbers.

2) Kids develop at different rates. The top 20% at age 11 will not be the same top 20% at age 12, 13 etc. But once that cut has been made, it's very difficult for late bloomers to get into a grammar and those who struggle once there will find it difficult to switch out. 11yo is a pretty arbirtrary age at which to decide if someone is, and should always be considered to be, in the top 20% of academic achievers. Setting within a single school at least enables people to be shuffled up or down depending on how well they are doing through their school career.

As an ex-Grammar oik, Grammars only really suit those who are good across the board right off the bat. If you struggle with one of the core subjects at an early age, you won't get in. If you're a late bloomer, it's too late. If you can't hack the pace, you'll suffer (not great to face an exam where the available results are A, B, C, Fail). They aren't even necessarily the best choice for all of their pupils - an interesting study based on Gloucester concluded the top 5(?)% would actually have performed better in non-selective schools.

Streaming within a non-selective school seems to me to be a much fairer and flexible system than shoving the brightest 11 year olds into the same school - on paper at least (as for it to be truly fair you need to abolish catchment areas and select randomly in order to stop wealthy families pricing others out).

Posted By: CWC, Oct 27, 02:49:03