Chris Bryant MPVerified account @RhonddaBryant Turkey is now and has long been a lynch pin in European and wider security. Ludicrous Brexit lies undoubtedly contributed to destabilising
I mean he actually typed that with a straight face
The various replies to that absurd tweet are very funny. He's such a plonker. And to think he was once a vicar.
As a churchwarden & someone who's family is quite involved with the church, I find that there are a higher percentage of plonkers among vicars than in the general population
what's a 'lynch pin', I wonder? Made in Alabama?
Lynch Law used to be something respectable - if unorthodox.
It comes from when Thomas Lynch was Mayor of Galway & his son & heir was found standing of the dead body of a rival, bloody knife in hand.
No jury would convict him of murder (the Lynch's were, by some margin, the most powerful family in the region). So Thomas declared martial law and hung his son without a trial.
lynchpin , more normally spelt linchpin is a pin used to hold a wheel in place on an axle. Though your one is more interesting.
I know - Lynching is nothing to do with linching (can you make a verb out of linch pin? or would it be to pin?)
I just thought it was an interesting story!
I know you do , and exactly as I said your story was much more interesting than the original meaning.
The ENTIRE Labour party (including Corbyn) could move to the "New Democrats", offer exactly the same policies as now - and yet any one of us here standing under the Labour banner (With zip policies) would win in about a hundred seats.
This is the rebels problem the "Labour" brand is a massive massive brand name.
What they need to do is to adopt the name 'real Labour' and relentlessly refer to the Corbynist rump as 'momentum Labour'.
I wonder if most of the problems in the English education system stem from the predominance in (perceived and possibly real) quality differences between Oxbridge and the rest of the Higher education system.
The same is not true in Scotland where a degree is a degree and even the brand new Universities do not have the stigma of England's ex-Polytechnics.
England is a very large country and to have its entire education system measured by how many kids get into two Universities should be a matter of some concern.
If Oxford and Cambridge did not exist, I think a lot of the problems would go away.
A new generation of bright but poor kids getting ahead hopefully.
A new generation of just under the cutoff kids being stuffed in forgotten about sub standard schools.
The issue with grammar school was never the grammar schools, it was those stuck in the secondary moderns below.*
* says the man who hopes his daughter gets into Henrietta Barnett
I think I'd get lynched if I moaned about my wife's schooling preference!
Any parent who does not do all that they can to ensure their child(ren) get the best possible education they can is, in my view, guilty of child abuse.
Grammar schools are a great idea for about 10% of children who would benefit from university education. And therein is the rub, we have a national target of sending 50% of our children to university. To just allow areas to re-introduce grammar schools without fixing the rest of the system (restoring freedom to teachers, technical schools, age of selection, return of the polytechnics etc.) would, in my view, be very wrong - a middle class rip-off.
Personally I'm a fan of setting in schools.
It's a bit more complex administratively, but can certainly be done if you have a reasonably sized pupil population. And for more specialist subjects, I see no problem with teachers working across 2-3 schools (although there should be a core group of teachers within each school)
He's doing a great PR job for them already. I feel a skip in my step.
"I came into the Foreign Office yesterday morning after a pretty truncated night’s sleep to find the place in what Her Majesty’s Diplomatic Service calls “crisis mode”...
Some of them had worked consecutive shifts without sleep... Some of them were still engaged in the aftermath of the horrendous carnage in Nice; some had only just finished organising an evacuation of aid workers from Juba in South Sudan, scene of a singularly nasty conflict..."
If he’s going speak so candidly, Boris will soon have to have his column vetted by the FCO…
Forget grammars. A better way to improve education is to copy what works elsewhere, like maths teaching in the Far East, now coming to a school near you. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-36772954
A question for the memoirs is whether Gove/Morgan/whoever was inspired by seeing it discussed on this here pb.
I wonder if most of the problems in the English education system stem from the predominance in (perceived and possibly real) quality differences between Oxbridge and the rest of the Higher education system.
The same is not true in Scotland where a degree is a degree and even the brand new Universities do not have the stigma of England's ex-Polytechnics.
England is a very large country and to have its entire education system measured by how many kids get into two Universities should be a matter of some concern.
If Oxford and Cambridge did not exist, I think a lot of the problems would go away.
Wow what horrid backwards thinking. If only we could get rid of the excellent we would all be equal.
You do realise that Oxbridge are not the only excellent universities we have? Nor the only universities without the stigma of being ex polytechnics? What about the Russell Group "redbrick" universities? Would you abolish them too?
Miss Plato, it is appalling. It's socialism in action.
But I repeat myself.
MD, it is pretend socialism, you still have an elite filling their pockets same as you do with right wingers. I do agree that the socialists tend to be just a bit less efficient at it.
I wonder if most of the problems in the English education system stem from the predominance in (perceived and possibly real) quality differences between Oxbridge and the rest of the Higher education system.
The same is not true in Scotland where a degree is a degree and even the brand new Universities do not have the stigma of England's ex-Polytechnics.
England is a very large country and to have its entire education system measured by how many kids get into two Universities should be a matter of some concern.
If Oxford and Cambridge did not exist, I think a lot of the problems would go away.
Wow what horrid backwards thinking. If only we could get rid of the excellent we would all be equal.
You do realise that Oxbridge are not the only excellent universities we have? Nor the only universities without the stigma of being ex polytechnics? What about the Russell Group "redbrick" universities? Would you abolish them too?
That's not what I am saying.
My point is that there is a particular focus in English education on two specific institutions which does not exist elsewhere. It is not about excellence being bad, it is about a very narrow, limited focus (which may not even have a real world basis).
When we leave the EU, we also leave the trade deals the EU has with the EFTA states, and with about two dozen other countries around the world. These countries *are* going to seek advantage from us because we're so keen to get a deal done quickly, and because all our trade negotiators are going to be locked in a room with the EU.
It's what makes EFTA (even without the EEA part) so attractive: they have almost exactly the same list of trade deals as the EU, plus they've actually signed their Canadian FTA I believe.
I thought the UK was aiming to confirm (with the non-EU states) that these deals will continue unchanged, rather than negotiate new deals.
EDIT "As a WTO Member and signatory of the EU’s Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) in its own right, the UK will continue to be bound by these obligations and should expect other countries to reciprocate. To do so would be in the interest of both parties: aside from the basic economic benefits of free trade, continuing to honour their FTAs with the UK would require no additional negotiation and would maintain the status quo; to repudiate them would result in the raising of tariff barriers and increased costs for both exporters and importers in the partner countries as well as the UK. Whilst it might not be a priority for all of these partners to negotiate an FTA with the UK if one did not exist already, maintaining an existing one would almost always be advantageous."
Forget grammars. A better way to improve education is to copy what works elsewhere, like maths teaching in the Far East, now coming to a school near you. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-36772954
A question for the memoirs is whether Gove/Morgan/whoever was inspired by seeing it discussed on this here pb.
I watched the TV docu series about it - after a lot of huffing and puffing all round - the kids and parents discovered Chinese teaching methods in science and maths gave a substantial improvement in results after just a few weeks.
The Head [of the OFSTED Outstanding school] was rather Oh. He'd been pretty certain that his methods were better. A fascinating journey to watch.
Chris Cook has a very good article on the BBC website http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-36662965 about grammar schools which looks at the underperformance of non grammar schools in the area.
Hurst - would people pay £10k a year to go to a Polytechnic?
I doubt it Mr. Booth but should there be a requirement for them to do that?
On a side note we have some very poor "universities" in the country of offering degrees of very dubious worth. Yet they charge their students the same as a top notch uni. Why that is allowed is beyond me.
Speaking as someone who many moons ago used the expression "Mathematicians do it in rings, in groups, in fields" in real life, I can assure you that anybody who wears that t-shirt will be getting no sex at all
I wonder if most of the problems in the English education system stem from the predominance in (perceived and possibly real) quality differences between Oxbridge and the rest of the Higher education system.
The same is not true in Scotland where a degree is a degree and even the brand new Universities do not have the stigma of England's ex-Polytechnics.
England is a very large country and to have its entire education system measured by how many kids get into two Universities should be a matter of some concern.
If Oxford and Cambridge did not exist, I think a lot of the problems would go away.
Wow what horrid backwards thinking. If only we could get rid of the excellent we would all be equal.
You do realise that Oxbridge are not the only excellent universities we have? Nor the only universities without the stigma of being ex polytechnics? What about the Russell Group "redbrick" universities? Would you abolish them too?
According to the Times list, we have 3 in the global top 10 (Oxbridge + Imperial), 4 in top 20 (add UCL) and 6 in top 25 (LSE + Edinburgh). Not too shabby.
Hurst - would people pay £10k a year to go to a Polytechnic?
I doubt it Mr. Booth but should there be a requirement for them to do that?
On a side note we have some very poor "universities" in the country of offering degrees of very dubious worth. Yet they charge their students the same as a top notch uni. Why that is allowed is beyond me.
You couldn't possibly be referring to London Metropolitan could you?
Chris Cook has a very good article on the BBC website http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-36662965 about grammar schools which looks at the underperformance of non grammar schools in the area.
A High School in selecrive Tunbridge Wells where I grew up has now become an Academy and just been rated Outstanding having been poor previously so nothing inevitable at all about poor performance of non selective schools in selective areas
A new generation of bright but poor kids getting ahead hopefully.
Depressing news. Look at the progress in inner city London schools and the numbers they are able to get into Oxbridge. Grammar schools are not needed for bright but poor kids to do well, we simply need good schools.
The problem English education has is mid level technical training which grammar schools do nothing to solve. We need to be thinking about averagely bright but poor kids,not bright but poor.
Grammar schools are the only state schools which compete with private schools on Oxbridge entry, yes there are a few exceptions like Mossbourne Academy but they are rare. Personally I am in favour of grammar expansion but would prefer entry at 13 or even 16 rather than 11
Lord Baker was also leading an expansion of technical schools under Cameron which will likely continue under May
You're misreading the stats.
Do more children per capita in Kent go to Oxbridge than go per capita from a demographically similar county. Not JUST those going from the Grammar schools in Kent. Of course they should have a much higher rate because they are selective. What is the OVERALL rate.
As far as I am aware there is no difference between Kent and the rest of the England. Clearly the Grammar school system does not deliver what it promises.
Grammar school pupils are overrepresented at Oxbridge compared to their numbers, comprehensive school pupils underrepresented, that is the key statistic. So yes the grammar school system does deliver
Not if the overall population has the same representation.
County A has 1 grammar school and 1 comprehensive. Count B has 2 comprehensives. The schools re of equal size.
County A sends 20 pupils to Oxbridge. 15 from the Grammar and 5 from the comp. County B sends 20, 10 from each.
Average number of pupils sent per school: 10. Average from Grammars 50% higher. Average from Comps: 17% lower
Difference between Counties: None.
No as 1 grammar on average sends more pupils on average to Oxbridge than two comprehensives
I wonder if most of the problems in the English education system stem from the predominance in (perceived and possibly real) quality differences between Oxbridge and the rest of the Higher education system.
The same is not true in Scotland where a degree is a degree and even the brand new Universities do not have the stigma of England's ex-Polytechnics.
England is a very large country and to have its entire education system measured by how many kids get into two Universities should be a matter of some concern.
If Oxford and Cambridge did not exist, I think a lot of the problems would go away.
Wow what horrid backwards thinking. If only we could get rid of the excellent we would all be equal.
You do realise that Oxbridge are not the only excellent universities we have? Nor the only universities without the stigma of being ex polytechnics? What about the Russell Group "redbrick" universities? Would you abolish them too?
According to the Times list, we have 3 in the global top 10 (Oxbridge + Imperial), 4 in top 20 (add UCL) and 6 in top 25 (LSE + Edinburgh). Not too shabby.
And yet in Scotland, the focus is not "if my kid doesn't get to Edinburgh the system isn't working". The excellence is spread around (Edinburgh for Medicine, Glasgow for Law, Aberdeen for History, Strathclyde for Politics, Heriot Watt for Maths, etc, etc.**)
The metric is broader. A broader metric would be quite helpful for deciding whether or not the English system of education is working.
**possibly not up to date but was the conventional wisdom back in my day
The ENTIRE Labour party (including Corbyn) could move to the "New Democrats", offer exactly the same policies as now - and yet any one of us here standing under the Labour banner (With zip policies) would win in about a hundred seats.
This is the rebels problem the "Labour" brand is a massive massive brand name.
Yes. It's floor of support us incredible. Inthe absence of some able to seize the opportunity as tbe SNP did, it woukd clung on. It seems incredible they will not split but I remain confident they won't. I still think Corbyn will, now he can say he would have been on the ballot and won, find a successor instead and the rebels will eagerly fall into line.
The rebels seem just as emotionally invested in the labour brand than Corbyn's core support. More so in fact, given his core includes SWP and others of that ilk - they'll be very glad to be be able to give a new leader a chance even if it's Effectively Corbyn in a nicer suit. Anything to avoid facing up to their party's mass ember ship seeming implacably opposed to them.
The SWP have a few thousand members and are a total irrelevance. They are not Corbyn's core support. This sort of thing is a complete media/blairite canard designed to discredit and marginalise a large and vibrant, positive, moderate left movement.
If you see Labour as "a large and vibrant, positive, moderate left movement" then could you not find a leader that better personifies that instead of some crumbly, miserablist, curmudgeonly old lefty who has spent his entire career on the far left fringes of politics?
I agree that Corbyn is not a Trot but the problem you have is that he is the idenkit picture of what most believe think a Trot would be like
A new generation of bright but poor kids getting ahead hopefully.
A new generation of just under the cutoff kids being stuffed in forgotten about sub standard schools.
The issue with grammar school was never the grammar schools, it was those stuck in the secondary moderns below.*
* says the man who hopes his daughter gets into Henrietta Barnett
I think I'd get lynched if I moaned about my wife's schooling preference!
Any parent who does not do all that they can to ensure their child(ren) get the best possible education they can is, in my view, guilty of child abuse.
Grammar schools are a great idea for about 10% of children who would benefit from university education. And therein is the rub, we have a national target of sending 50% of our children to university. To just allow areas to re-introduce grammar schools without fixing the rest of the system (restoring freedom to teachers, technical schools, age of selection, return of the polytechnics etc.) would, in my view, be very wrong - a middle class rip-off.
Personally I'm a fan of setting in schools.
It's a bit more complex administratively, but can certainly be done if you have a reasonably sized pupil population. And for more specialist subjects, I see no problem with teachers working across 2-3 schools (although there should be a core group of teachers within each school)
The research I saw showed that setting was definitely good for those at the top who are no longer held back. It could be good for those at the bottom providing they aren't just dumped in a "don't bother" tank and do get extra support. Setting is not good for those in the middle as they will just coast, whereas mixing in the best students encourages them to do better. Emulation is the most powerful driver of improvement.
The political problem with grammar schools is that parents (collectively) don't like them. You are happy if you are the 20% of parents whose child goes to grammar school and unhappy if you are the 80% of parents whose child goes to a school that by definition is second-rate. The 80% will outvote the 20%.
SDP2 would have no Short Money and no Union money. This immediately puts its financial situaiton in a very precarious position.
It is also unsupported by Labour members who want to deselect the right wing MPs infesting the PLP. Again, no money for them there. The only hope they have for funding is for people like John Mills to prop them up.
If you're claiming they can get tens of millions of points in backing from enough wealthy backers, you need to demonstrate some evidence of this beyond the odd claim. You'd also need to explain to potential voters how a party ENTIRELY funded by a wealth few is a popular, social democratic movement.
Who gives a fuck about Short money ? PD can attract the same level of donor money as the Tories can.
Again, another completely unsubstantiated claim.
The Labour party gets money from Unions, Subscriptions and small donations, Short Money and large donors. Labour, even at the height of Blairism got significantly less money from large donors than the Tories. Its a fraction of what the Tories get.
SDP2 will have access to only ONE of those four funding sources, which has always been historically tiny compared to the amount the Tories get from the same source and yet, you claim that SDP2 will magically get as much from this source as the Tories.
What was the original SDP's funding like? Genuinely, I don't know.
As I recall, to begin with they attracted some big donors, as well as having a fairly wealthy membership base. They began with more money than the Liberals; certainly their HQ (in Cowley St SW1, until a few years ago LibDem HQ) was quite swanky (at least from the outside). My recollection is hazy but I think by the time of the merger they were still in quite good financial shape, for a political party, although heavily reliant upon a few of the original big donors that had stuck with them through the Owen years.
Germany has wholesale selective secondary education, France has some selective lycees, South Korea has selective schools, even the U.S. has some in New York and Finland selects in the sixth form. Most grammars also have a sixth form entry
Again you are misrepresenting your claims.
No country has a binary model remotely similar to the Grammar school system.
Personally, I think there is a lot of appeal of the MAGNET and Gymnasium systems and a combination of both (i.e. MAGNET with lots of technical, some sport and arts and no academic selection) would work best but the bulk of kids would still go to a standard comprehensive high school.
No Germany has wholesale selection effectively. May is not even proposing that just more grammars to meet demand, presently only 5% go to grammars in the UK
Hurst - would people pay £10k a year to go to a Polytechnic?
I doubt it Mr. Booth but should there be a requirement for them to do that?
On a side note we have some very poor "universities" in the country of offering degrees of very dubious worth. Yet they charge their students the same as a top notch uni. Why that is allowed is beyond me.
You couldn't possibly be referring to London Metropolitan could you?
UEL, Edge Hill, Huddersfield...
The government thought that the 'free market' would mean they would know their place and set fees lower than Oxbridge/Russell Group. Of course, the Vice-Chancellors said 'Excellent, £9,000 per student per annum!' and gave themselves a payrise.
Mr. Lowlander, I fear you're just unaware of the university situation in England.
It's a while since I looked, but Leeds Met [since renamed, I forget to what] was/is one of the best for sports psychology. Durham, Liverpool, Leeds are all fine universities.
Whilst Oxford and Cambridge to have a lot of prestige, it's not there or bust. There are plenty of top universities in England.
Hurst - would people pay £10k a year to go to a Polytechnic?
I doubt it Mr. Booth but should there be a requirement for them to do that?
On a side note we have some very poor "universities" in the country of offering degrees of very dubious worth. Yet they charge their students the same as a top notch uni. Why that is allowed is beyond me.
Haven't been following the betting on this - if there is much.
IIRC the EU runs on a calendar year - so Article 50 on 31st Dec 2016 makes sense.
"However, the Telegraph has learned that senior government officials have been told to being working to a timetable under which Article 50 is triggered by Christmas this year.
Once the Prime Minister has informed the EU that Britain is invoking Article 50, a two year countdown begins during which negotiations are held over the terms under which the UK will leave.
David Davis, the Secretary of State for Exiting the EU, has previously said he wants to trigger Article 50 by the end of this year."
Mr. Lowlander, I fear you're just unaware of the university situation in England.
It's a while since I looked, but Leeds Met [since renamed, I forget to what] was/is one of the best for sports psychology. Durham, Liverpool, Leeds are all fine universities.
Whilst Oxford and Cambridge to have a lot of prestige, it's not there or bust. There are plenty of top universities in England.
Doesn't that agree with my point?
Using the metric of entry to Oxbridge is a very bad way to judge the success of the education system overall.
A new generation of bright but poor kids getting ahead hopefully.
A new generation of just under the cutoff kids being stuffed in forgotten about sub standard schools.
The issue with grammar school was never the grammar schools, it was those stuck in the secondary moderns below.*
* says the man who hopes his daughter gets into Henrietta Barnett
I'm fairly certain I can run a successful school if I can pick the academically best children/parents in the area.
The major reason you want your kid to go to a grammar school, is that you want your kid to go to a school where all the other parents are obsessive about education.
Of course, as I said before, the issue is that it sucks for the kids who don't make the cut.
Not necessarily, selective Trafford has above average GCSE results overall
The FT article is excellent if you can get past the paywall. It changed my mind on this issue.
So what about the commonly made claim that grammars boost social mobility? Maybe they do not increase everyone’s results, but do they close the rich-poor gap? Well, here is the average score attained by FSM-eligible children.
And the same attainment graph as before, but solely for FSM-eligible children:
You can see that poor children do dramatically worse in selective areas.
There is an narrower idea out there in the ether that grammar schools are better for propelling poor children to the very top of the tree. But, again, that is not true. Poor children are less likely to score very highly at GCSE in grammar areas than the rest. Note that the blue line is below the red on the very right hand side of the graph.
Indeed, I think this whole story is neatly encapsulated by one graph to follow. If you plot how well children do on average by household deprivation for selective areas and for the rest of the country, you can see that the net effect of grammar schools is to disadvantage poor children and help the rich.
At the left hand side of the graph, where poor children’s results are, you can see selective areas do much worse. At the very right, you can see a few very rich children do better. This is all driven by the process of selection itself: poor children are more likely to be behind at the age of 11, and less likely to get places in grammars.
Selective areas like Buckinghamshire and Trafford have above average GCSE results overall and above average Oxbridge entry, that FT article looked solely at free school meals pupils for whom results on comprehensive areas like Knowsley are equally woeful
I wonder if most of the problems in the English education system stem from the predominance in (perceived and possibly real) quality differences between Oxbridge and the rest of the Higher education system.
The same is not true in Scotland where a degree is a degree and even the brand new Universities do not have the stigma of England's ex-Polytechnics.
England is a very large country and to have its entire education system measured by how many kids get into two Universities should be a matter of some concern.
If Oxford and Cambridge did not exist, I think a lot of the problems would go away.
Wow what horrid backwards thinking. If only we could get rid of the excellent we would all be equal.
You do realise that Oxbridge are not the only excellent universities we have? Nor the only universities without the stigma of being ex polytechnics? What about the Russell Group "redbrick" universities? Would you abolish them too?
Indeed Oxbridge are the only non U.S. universities in the global top 10
A new generation of bright but poor kids getting ahead hopefully.
A new generation of just under the cutoff kids being stuffed in forgotten about sub standard schools.
The issue with grammar school was never the grammar schools, it was those stuck in the secondary moderns below.*
* says the man who hopes his daughter gets into Henrietta Barnett
I think I'd get lynched if I moaned about my wife's schooling preference!
Any parent who does not do all that they can to ensure their child(ren) get the best possible education they can is, in my view, guilty of child abuse.
Grammar schools are a great idea for about 10% of children who would benefit from university education. And therein is the rub, we have a national target of sending 50% of our children to university. To just allow areas to re-introduce grammar schools without fixing the rest of the system (restoring freedom to teachers, technical schools, age of selection, return of the polytechnics etc.) would, in my view, be very wrong - a middle class rip-off.
Personally I'm a fan of setting in schools.
It's a bit more complex administratively, but can certainly be done if you have a reasonably sized pupil population. And for more specialist subjects, I see no problem with teachers working across 2-3 schools (although there should be a core group of teachers within each school)
The research I saw showed that setting was definitely good for those at the top who are no longer held back. It could be good for those at the bottom providing they aren't just dumped in a "don't bother" tank and do get extra support. Setting is not good for those in the middle as they will just coast, whereas mixing in the best students encourages them to do better. Emulation is the most powerful driver of improvement.
The political problem with grammar schools is that parents (collectively) don't like them. You are happy if you are the 20% of parents whose child goes to grammar school and unhappy if you are the 80% of parents whose child goes to a school that by definition is second-rate. The 80% will outvote the 20%.
Kids who will coast will always coast.
You should have a system where there is a recut of the sets at the end of every academic year & try to create a culture where is is a good thing to be in the top sets. To a significant extent this is because kids who are naturally in the middle of the pack will be in relatively higher sets in some subjects and so they will see the rewards of hard work in person - it's why setting is far better than streaming.
A new generation of bright but poor kids getting ahead hopefully.
A new generation of just under the cutoff kids being stuffed in forgotten about sub standard schools.
The issue with grammar school was never the grammar schools, it was those stuck in the secondary moderns below.*
* says the man who hopes his daughter gets into Henrietta Barnett
I'm fairly certain I can run a successful school if I can pick the academically best children/parents in the area.
The major reason you want your kid to go to a grammar school, is that you want your kid to go to a school where all the other parents are obsessive about education.
Of course, as I said before, the issue is that it sucks for the kids who don't make the cut.
Instead of closing grammar schools we should have focused on fixing secondary moderns. Many people didn't even have the chance to take O Levels because they ended up in the wrong school at the age of 11.
Secondary moderns were not really the problem -- it was the technical schools that were the third leg of the system, that would teach engineering and craft skills. Alas, all those labs, workshops and materials were very expensive, so almost none were opened.
Anecdote alert. In my area, in the late 40’s/early 50’s. the top 5 or so % of 11 year olds went to grammar schools, the next 5% or so to technical schools and the balance to sec.mod. I couldn’t understand then why it was assumed that why it was assumed that if one wasn’t “bright” enough on the day to go to a grammar school, one would be suitable for work in engineering, such as being a draughtsman.
I wonder if most of the problems in the English education system stem from the predominance in (perceived and possibly real) quality differences between Oxbridge and the rest of the Higher education system.
The same is not true in Scotland where a degree is a degree and even the brand new Universities do not have the stigma of England's ex-Polytechnics.
England is a very large country and to have its entire education system measured by how many kids get into two Universities should be a matter of some concern.
If Oxford and Cambridge did not exist, I think a lot of the problems would go away.
Wow what horrid backwards thinking. If only we could get rid of the excellent we would all be equal.
You do realise that Oxbridge are not the only excellent universities we have? Nor the only universities without the stigma of being ex polytechnics? What about the Russell Group "redbrick" universities? Would you abolish them too?
According to the Times list, we have 3 in the global top 10 (Oxbridge + Imperial), 4 in top 20 (add UCL) and 6 in top 25 (LSE + Edinburgh). Not too shabby.
And yet in Scotland, the focus is not "if my kid doesn't get to Edinburgh the system isn't working". The excellence is spread around (Edinburgh for Medicine, Glasgow for Law, Aberdeen for History, Strathclyde for Politics, Heriot Watt for Maths, etc, etc.**)
The metric is broader. A broader metric would be quite helpful for deciding whether or not the English system of education is working.
**possibly not up to date but was the conventional wisdom back in my day
The same is true in the UK in actuality. It's our reportage that makes it seem otherwise. It's all part of that simplification of public discourse that we see in many areas. I would imagine many ordinary people in England don't even know what the Russell Group is - unless they have 17 year olds. Everyone's heard of the Boat Race.
The conversation I'd like to see is simply this. Do we really want or need half of our school leavers to go to university? For many degrees the graduate premium is either negligible or in some cases, negative.
I wonder if most of the problems in the English education system stem from the predominance in (perceived and possibly real) quality differences between Oxbridge and the rest of the Higher education system.
The same is not true in Scotland where a degree is a degree and even the brand new Universities do not have the stigma of England's ex-Polytechnics.
England is a very large country and to have its entire education system measured by how many kids get into two Universities should be a matter of some concern.
If Oxford and Cambridge did not exist, I think a lot of the problems would go away.
Wow what horrid backwards thinking. If only we could get rid of the excellent we would all be equal.
You do realise that Oxbridge are not the only excellent universities we have? Nor the only universities without the stigma of being ex polytechnics? What about the Russell Group "redbrick" universities? Would you abolish them too?
Indeed Oxbridge are the only non U.S. universities in the global top 10
Oxbridge has given us David Lammy and Diane Abbot. Sometimes I wonder about their selection criteria.
The FT article is excellent if you can get past the paywall. It changed my mind on this issue.
So what about the commonly made claim that grammars boost social mobility? Maybe they do not increase everyone’s results, but do they close the rich-poor gap? Well, here is the average score attained by FSM-eligible children.
And the same attainment graph as before, but solely for FSM-eligible children:
You can see that poor children do dramatically worse in selective areas.
There is an narrower idea out there in the ether that grammar schools are better for propelling poor children to the very top of the tree. But, again, that is not true. Poor children are less likely to score very highly at GCSE in grammar areas than the rest. Note that the blue line is below the red on the very right hand side of the graph.
Indeed, I think this whole story is neatly encapsulated by one graph to follow. If you plot how well children do on average by household deprivation for selective areas and for the rest of the country, you can see that the net effect of grammar schools is to disadvantage poor children and help the rich.
At the left hand side of the graph, where poor children’s results are, you can see selective areas do much worse. At the very right, you can see a few very rich children do better. This is all driven by the process of selection itself: poor children are more likely to be behind at the age of 11, and less likely to get places in grammars.
Selective areas like Buckinghamshire and Trafford have above average GCSE results overall and above average Oxbridge entry, that FT article looked solely at free school meals pupils for whom results on comprehensive areas like Knowsley are equally woeful
You need to control for wealth. I am sure that Bucks and Trafford would do fine whatever the system
Speaking as someone who many moons ago used the expression "Mathematicians do it in rings, in groups, in fields" in real life, I can assure you that anybody who wears that t-shirt will be getting no sex at all
Hurst - would people pay £10k a year to go to a Polytechnic?
I doubt it Mr. Booth but should there be a requirement for them to do that?
On a side note we have some very poor "universities" in the country of offering degrees of very dubious worth. Yet they charge their students the same as a top notch uni. Why that is allowed is beyond me.
It is more complicated than that. First, there can be isolated pockets of excellence in the most unlikely places. Recent pb favourite WW1 expert Gary Sheffield is based at Wolverhampton, for instance. £10k fees mean everywhere can afford to hire and support outstanding researchers. Second, that what people generally see as worthy and worthless degrees is often not reflected in the market. Third, teaching and research are not the same thing but it is generally research that is rated.
As an added complication, which I think is what Lowlander was getting at, is the "halo effect" enjoyed by some establishments because employers tend to recruit only from "top" universities -- operationally defined as Oxbridge and the hiring manager's own alma mater.
A new generation of bright but poor kids getting ahead hopefully.
Depressing news. Look at the progress in inner city London schools and the numbers they are able to get into Oxbridge. Grammar schools are not needed for bright but poor kids to do well, we simply need good schools.
The problem English education has is mid level technical training which grammar schools do nothing to solve. We need to be thinking about averagely bright but poor kids,not bright but poor.
Grammar schools are the only state schools which compete with private schools on Oxbridge entry, yes there are a few exceptions like Mossbourne Academy but they are rare. Personally I am in favour of grammar expansion but would prefer entry at 13 or even 16 rather than 11
Lord Baker was also leading an expansion of technical schools under Cameron which will likely continue under May
You're misreading the stats.
Do more children per capita in Kent go to Oxbridge than go per capita from a demographically similar county. Not JUST those going from the Grammar schools in Kent. Of course they should have a much higher rate because they are selective. What is the OVERALL rate.
As far as I am aware there is no difference between Kent and the rest of the England. Clearly the Grammar school system does not deliver what it promises.
Grammar school pupils are overrepresented at Oxbridge compared to their numbers, comprehensive school pupils underrepresented, that is the key statistic. So yes the grammar school system does deliver
Not if the overall population has the same representation.
County A has 1 grammar school and 1 comprehensive. Count B has 2 comprehensives. The schools re of equal size.
County A sends 20 pupils to Oxbridge. 15 from the Grammar and 5 from the comp. County B sends 20, 10 from each.
Average number of pupils sent per school: 10. Average from Grammars 50% higher. Average from Comps: 17% lower
Difference between Counties: None.
No as 1 grammar on average sends more pupils on average to Oxbridge than two comprehensives
There are two schools in each County. All the Grammar has done is shift the pupils that would have gone to Oxbridge from the County A Comp to the Grammar.
The Grammar and Comp in the same County are drawing from the same population, they are not separate populations.
If you break away as a Labour MP, and you face a Labour candidate and - plausibly - a more popular Conservative party than under David Cameron, you aren't going to win a general election because you aren't going to hold your own seat. Instead we will be talking about lots of 30-25-25-10 results.
A new generation of bright but poor kids getting ahead hopefully.
A new generation of just under the cutoff kids being stuffed in forgotten about sub standard schools.
The issue with grammar school was never the grammar schools, it was those stuck in the secondary moderns below.*
* says the man who hopes his daughter gets into Henrietta Barnett
I'm fairly certain I can run a successful school if I can pick the academically best children/parents in the area.
The major reason you want your kid to go to a grammar school, is that you want your kid to go to a school where all the other parents are obsessive about education.
Of course, as I said before, the issue is that it sucks for the kids who don't make the cut.
Instead of closing grammar schools we should have focused on fixing secondary moderns. Many people didn't even have the chance to take O Levels because they ended up in the wrong school at the age of 11.
Secondary moderns were not really the problem -- it was the technical schools that were the third leg of the system, that would teach engineering and craft skills. Alas, all those labs, workshops and materials were very expensive, so almost none were opened.
Anecdote alert. In my area, in the late 40’s/early 50’s. the top 5 or so % of 11 year olds went to grammar schools, the next 5% or so to technical schools and the balance to sec.mod. I couldn’t understand then why it was assumed that why it was assumed that if one wasn’t “bright” enough on the day to go to a grammar school, one would be suitable for work in engineering, such as being a draughtsman.
More than twice as many September born babies made it to grammar schools than those - like me - born in August.
He's doing a great PR job for them already. I feel a skip in my step.
"I came into the Foreign Office yesterday morning after a pretty truncated night’s sleep to find the place in what Her Majesty’s Diplomatic Service calls “crisis mode”...
Some of them had worked consecutive shifts without sleep... Some of them were still engaged in the aftermath of the horrendous carnage in Nice; some had only just finished organising an evacuation of aid workers from Juba in South Sudan, scene of a singularly nasty conflict..."
More of these wasteful aid workers swanning their way around the world and living it up at the public expense? (Not my view)
Doesn't that require us to remain inside the EU dispute resolution mechanism? Which we can do, but would require us to negotiate that with our EU partners on exit, and might be something we're not 100% comfortable with.
A new generation of bright but poor kids getting ahead hopefully.
Depressing news. Look at the progress in inner city London schools and the numbers they are able to get into Oxbridge. Grammar schools are not needed for bright but poor kids to do well, we simply need good schools.
The problem English education has is mid level technical training which grammar schools do nothing to solve. We need to be thinking about averagely bright but poor kids,not bright but poor.
Grammar schools are the only state schools which compete with private schools on Oxbridge entry, yes there are a few exceptions like Mossbourne Academy but they are rare. Personally I am in favour of grammar expansion but would prefer entry at 13 or even 16 rather than 11
Lord Baker was also leading an expansion of technical schools under Cameron which will likely continue under May
You're misreading the stats.
Do more children per capita in Kent go to Oxbridge than go per capita from a demographically similar county. Not JUST those going from the Grammar schools in Kent. Of course they should have a much higher rate because they are selective. What is the OVERALL rate.
As far as I am aware there is no difference between Kent and the rest of the England. Clearly the Grammar school system does not deliver what it promises.
Grammar school pupils are overrepresented at Oxbridge compared to their numbers, comprehensive school pupils underrepresented, that is the key statistic. So yes the grammar school system does deliver
Not if the overall population has the same representation.
County A has 1 grammar school and 1 comprehensive. Count B has 2 comprehensives. The schools re of equal size.
County A sends 20 pupils to Oxbridge. 15 from the Grammar and 5 from the comp. County B sends 20, 10 from each.
Average number of pupils sent per school: 10. Average from Grammars 50% higher. Average from Comps: 17% lower
Difference between Counties: None.
No as 1 grammar on average sends more pupils on average to Oxbridge than two comprehensives
There are two schools in each County. All the Grammar has done is shift the pupils that would have gone from Oxbridge from the County Comp to the Grammar.
The Grammar and Comp in the same County are drawing from the same population, they are not separate populations.
That only makes sense if the catchment area for the Grammar school is set at the comp level.
I wonder if most of the problems in the English education system stem from the predominance in (perceived and possibly real) quality differences between Oxbridge and the rest of the Higher education system.
The same is not true in Scotland where a degree is a degree and even the brand new Universities do not have the stigma of England's ex-Polytechnics.
England is a very large country and to have its entire education system measured by how many kids get into two Universities should be a matter of some concern.
If Oxford and Cambridge did not exist, I think a lot of the problems would go away.
Wow what horrid backwards thinking. If only we could get rid of the excellent we would all be equal.
You do realise that Oxbridge are not the only excellent universities we have? Nor the only universities without the stigma of being ex polytechnics? What about the Russell Group "redbrick" universities? Would you abolish them too?
According to the Times list, we have 3 in the global top 10 (Oxbridge + Imperial), 4 in top 20 (add UCL) and 6 in top 25 (LSE + Edinburgh). Not too shabby.
It varies slightly depending what you measure -- iirc on research citation counts, our top performer is St George's Medical School, which periodically faces calls for its closure because it is "too small".
I wonder if most of the problems in the English education system stem from the predominance in (perceived and possibly real) quality differences between Oxbridge and the rest of the Higher education system.
The same is not true in Scotland where a degree is a degree and even the brand new Universities do not have the stigma of England's ex-Polytechnics.
England is a very large country and to have its entire education system measured by how many kids get into two Universities should be a matter of some concern.
If Oxford and Cambridge did not exist, I think a lot of the problems would go away.
Wow what horrid backwards thinking. If only we could get rid of the excellent we would all be equal.
You do realise that Oxbridge are not the only excellent universities we have? Nor the only universities without the stigma of being ex polytechnics? What about the Russell Group "redbrick" universities? Would you abolish them too?
Indeed Oxbridge are the only non U.S. universities in the global top 10
If I were a member of the Labour Party I would vote for Owen Smith. I like his policies, he is media savvy and I can even imagine him as PM. A young John Smith figure.
However I disagree with him when he argues only one MP should oppose Corbyn.
It doesn't make sense (except to knock out Eagle before the vote).
Smith will appeal to some Corbyn waverers and Eagle will appeal to others. Between them, they should reduce Corbyn's first preferences. They are likely to pick up one another's second preferences from anti-Corbyn voters. No-one knows which of the two will appeal most to the membership. Rather than MPs or the NEC choose one of them, it is surely best that it is left to the membership if Smith and Eagle really want to defeat Corbyn.
A new generation of bright but poor kids getting ahead hopefully.
A new generation of just under the cutoff kids being stuffed in forgotten about sub standard schools.
The issue with grammar school was never the grammar schools, it was those stuck in the secondary moderns below.*
* says the man who hopes his daughter gets into Henrietta Barnett
I'm fairly certain I can run a successful school if I can pick the academically best children/parents in the area.
The major reason you want your kid to go to a grammar school, is that you want your kid to go to a school where all the other parents are obsessive about education.
Of course, as I said before, the issue is that it sucks for the kids who don't make the cut.
Instead of closing grammar schools we should have focused on fixing secondary moderns. Many people didn't even have the chance to take O Levels because they ended up in the wrong school at the age of 11.
Secondary moderns were not really the problem -- it was the technical schools that were the third leg of the system, that would teach engineering and craft skills. Alas, all those labs, workshops and materials were very expensive, so almost none were opened.
Anecdote alert. In my area, in the late 40’s/early 50’s. the top 5 or so % of 11 year olds went to grammar schools, the next 5% or so to technical schools and the balance to sec.mod. I couldn’t understand then why it was assumed that why it was assumed that if one wasn’t “bright” enough on the day to go to a grammar school, one would be suitable for work in engineering, such as being a draughtsman.
More than twice as many September born babies made it to grammar schools than those - like me - born in August.
Indeed. And in my day the exam..... one off chance, win or bust ..... was in February. In the only area I know about now it is in September! We also, when my children were at that stage, in a situation where there were two places per sex from each local school for the Grammar Schools We were told that my son was one of three boys who would “pass”. However, only two would get Grammar places. On the day he had a cold, was third and for years afterwards, we later discovered, regarded himself as a 11+ failure. That was in his eyes, definitely not ours.We’d had to be persuaded to let him take the wretched exam.
I wonder if most of the problems in the English education system stem from the predominance in (perceived and possibly real) quality differences between Oxbridge and the rest of the Higher education system.
The same is not true in Scotland where a degree is a degree and even the brand new Universities do not have the stigma of England's ex-Polytechnics.
England is a very large country and to have its entire education system measured by how many kids get into two Universities should be a matter of some concern.
If Oxford and Cambridge did not exist, I think a lot of the problems would go away.
Wow what horrid backwards thinking. If only we could get rid of the excellent we would all be equal.
You do realise that Oxbridge are not the only excellent universities we have? Nor the only universities without the stigma of being ex polytechnics? What about the Russell Group "redbrick" universities? Would you abolish them too?
Indeed Oxbridge are the only non U.S. universities in the global top 10
What about Imperial?
Zurich is also not in America. Good job our new Prime Minister has a geography degree.
I wonder if most of the problems in the English education system stem from the predominance in (perceived and possibly real) quality differences between Oxbridge and the rest of the Higher education system.
The same is not true in Scotland where a degree is a degree and even the brand new Universities do not have the stigma of England's ex-Polytechnics.
England is a very large country and to have its entire education system measured by how many kids get into two Universities should be a matter of some concern.
If Oxford and Cambridge did not exist, I think a lot of the problems would go away.
Wow what horrid backwards thinking. If only we could get rid of the excellent we would all be equal.
You do realise that Oxbridge are not the only excellent universities we have? Nor the only universities without the stigma of being ex polytechnics? What about the Russell Group "redbrick" universities? Would you abolish them too?
Indeed Oxbridge are the only non U.S. universities in the global top 10
A new generation of bright but poor kids getting ahead hopefully.
A new generation of just under the cutoff kids being stuffed in forgotten about sub standard schools.
The issue with grammar school was never the grammar schools, it was those stuck in the secondary moderns below.*
* says the man who hopes his daughter gets into Henrietta Barnett
I'm fairly certain I can run a successful school if I can pick the academically best children/parents in the area.
The major reason you want your kid to go to a grammar school, is that you want your kid to go to a school where all the other parents are obsessive about education.
Of course, as I said before, the issue is that it sucks for the kids who don't make the cut.
Instead of closing grammar schools we should have focused on fixing secondary moderns. Many people didn't even have the chance to take O Levels because they ended up in the wrong school at the age of 11.
Secondary moderns were not really the problem -- it was the technical schools that were the third leg of the system, that would teach engineering and craft skills. Alas, all those labs, workshops and materials were very expensive, so almost none were opened.
Anecdote alert. In my area, in the late 40’s/early 50’s. the top 5 or so % of 11 year olds went to grammar schools, the next 5% or so to technical schools and the balance to sec.mod. I couldn’t understand then why it was assumed that why it was assumed that if one wasn’t “bright” enough on the day to go to a grammar school, one would be suitable for work in engineering, such as being a draughtsman.
More than twice as many September born babies made it to grammar schools than those - like me - born in August.
Indeed. And in my day the exam..... one off chance, win or bust ..... was in February. In the only area I know about now it is in September! We also, when my children were at that stage, in a situation where there were two places per sex from each local school for the Grammar Schools We were told that my son was one of three boys who would “pass”. However, only two would get Grammar places. On the day he had a cold, was third and for years afterwards, we later discovered, regarded himself as a 11+ failure. That was in his eyes, definitely not ours.We’d had to be persuaded to let him take the wretched exam.
Penny Mordaunt – Minister of State at DWP Mike Penning – Minister of State at MoD Brandon Lewis – Minister of State for Policing and the Fire Service at the Home Office Matt Hancock – Minister of State responsible for digital policy at DCMS Jane Ellison – Financial Secretary to the Treasury Jo Johnson – Minister of State at the Department for Education and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, leading on universities and science John Hayes – Minister of State at the Department for Transport Damian Hinds – Minister of State for the Department of Work and Pensions Greg Hands – Minister of State in the Department for International Trade Robert Goodwill – Minister of State for immigration in the Home Office Lord Price – Minister of State at the Department for International Trade Philip Dunne – Minister of State at the Department of Health Sir Oliver Heald – Minister of State at the Ministry of Justice Nick Hurd – Minister of State at Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy Ben Wallace – Minister of State for Security at the Home Office Baroness Williams – Minister of State at the Home Office Sir Alan Duncan – Minister of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office Baroness Anelay – Minister of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Department for International Development Earl Howe – Minister of State at the Ministry of Defence and Deputy Leader of the House of Lords Nick Gibb – Minister of State at the Department for Education Edward Timpson – Minister of State at the Department for Education Robert Halfon – Minister of State at the Department for Education David Jones – Minister of State at the Department for Exiting the European Union Baroness Neville-Rolfe – Minister of State at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Lord Freud – Minister of State for Welfare Reform at the Department for Work and Pensions Gavin Barwell – Minister of State for Housing, Planning and Minister for London at the Department for Communities and Local Government George Eustice – Minister of State at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Rory Stewart – Minister of State at the Department for International Development
Haven't been following the betting on this - if there is much.
IIRC the EU runs on a calendar year - so Article 50 on 31st Dec 2016 makes sense.
"However, the Telegraph has learned that senior government officials have been told to being working to a timetable under which Article 50 is triggered by Christmas this year.
Once the Prime Minister has informed the EU that Britain is invoking Article 50, a two year countdown begins during which negotiations are held over the terms under which the UK will leave.
David Davis, the Secretary of State for Exiting the EU, has previously said he wants to trigger Article 50 by the end of this year."
I suspect that is a contingency plan to give ministers the option. I doubt it will actually happen given May's caution in getting her ducks in a row first.
I wonder if most of the problems in the English education system stem from the predominance in (perceived and possibly real) quality differences between Oxbridge and the rest of the Higher education system.
The same is not true in Scotland where a degree is a degree and even the brand new Universities do not have the stigma of England's ex-Polytechnics.
England is a very large country and to have its entire education system measured by how many kids get into two Universities should be a matter of some concern.
If Oxford and Cambridge did not exist, I think a lot of the problems would go away.
Wow what horrid backwards thinking. If only we could get rid of the excellent we would all be equal.
You do realise that Oxbridge are not the only excellent universities we have? Nor the only universities without the stigma of being ex polytechnics? What about the Russell Group "redbrick" universities? Would you abolish them too?
Indeed Oxbridge are the only non U.S. universities in the global top 10
I wonder if most of the problems in the English education system stem from the predominance in (perceived and possibly real) quality differences between Oxbridge and the rest of the Higher education system.
The same is not true in Scotland where a degree is a degree and even the brand new Universities do not have the stigma of England's ex-Polytechnics.
England is a very large country and to have its entire education system measured by how many kids get into two Universities should be a matter of some concern.
If Oxford and Cambridge did not exist, I think a lot of the problems would go away.
Wow what horrid backwards thinking. If only we could get rid of the excellent we would all be equal.
You do realise that Oxbridge are not the only excellent universities we have? Nor the only universities without the stigma of being ex polytechnics? What about the Russell Group "redbrick" universities? Would you abolish them too?
Indeed Oxbridge are the only non U.S. universities in the global top 10
Of course countries such as India , USA and Australia are anxious to set up bilateral trade deals quickly with a post Brexit UK . They see a country desperate to prove it can do better outside the EU and feel that they can use the opportunity to get very favourable trade terms for themselves out of that desperation .
The current position of the UK seems very similar to that of its pre-EU period between 1945 and 1970. Desperate to improve its trade position, blundering from crisis to crisis and other nations seeing a weak and feeble nation and picking the bones clean.
The idea of any nation offering decent terms to the UK at the moment is quite comical.
Which is precisely what many Remainers are hoping for.
A new generation of bright but poor kids getting ahead hopefully.
A new generation of just under the cutoff kids being stuffed in forgotten about sub standard schools.
The issue with grammar school was never the grammar schools, it was those stuck in the secondary moderns below.*
* says the man who hopes his daughter gets into Henrietta Barnett
I think I'd get lynched if I moaned about my wife's schooling preference!
Any parent who does not do all that they can to ensure their child(ren) get the best possible education they can is, in my view, guilty of child abuse.
Grammar schools are a great idea for about 10% of children who would benefit from university education. And therein is the rub, we have a national target of sending 50% of our children to university. To just allow areas to re-introduce grammar schools without fixing the rest of the system (restoring freedom to teachers, technical schools, age of selection, return of the polytechnics etc.) would, in my view, be very wrong - a middle class rip-off.
Personally I'm a fan of setting in schools.
It's a bit more complex administratively, but can certainly be done if you have a reasonably sized pupil population. And for more specialist subjects, I see no problem with teachers working across 2-3 schools (although there should be a core group of teachers within each school)
I worked extensively in both comps and a grammar up to headteacher level. The setting in comprehensive schools to work effectively requires typically a school size of at least 1500 and preferably much more - otherwise you cannot offer the range of subjects especially post-16 cost-effectively. This then often causes major issues with behaviour management and institutional identity. On your second point behavioural issues are much greater with a mixed intake - and then stability in the workforce becomes much more important. Floating teachers really is not an easy system to manage effectively in this respect. In short [even today] teachers are a pretty intelligent and clued up bunch. If the solutions were easy we wouldn't be discussing them.
A new generation of bright but poor kids getting ahead hopefully.
Depressing news. Look at the progress in inner city London schools and the numbers they are able to get into Oxbridge. Grammar schools are not needed for bright but poor kids to do well, we simply need good schools.
The problem English education has is mid level technical training which grammar schools do nothing to solve. We need to be thinking about averagely bright but poor kids,not bright but poor.
Grammar schools are the only state schools which compete with private schools on Oxbridge entry, yes there are a few exceptions like Mossbourne Academy but they are rare. Personally I am in favour of grammar expansion but would prefer entry at 13 or even 16 rather than 11
Lord Baker was also leading an expansion of technical schools under Cameron which will likely continue under May
You're misreading the stats.
Do more children per capita in Kent go to Oxbridge than go per capita from a demographically similar county. Not JUST those going from the Grammar schools in Kent. Of course they should have a much higher rate because they are selective. What is the OVERALL rate.
As far as I am aware there is no difference between Kent and the rest of the England. Clearly the Grammar school system does not deliver what it promises.
Grammar school pupils are overrepresented at Oxbridge compared to their numbers, comprehensive school pupils underrepresented, that is the key statistic. So yes the grammar school system does deliver
Not if the overall population has the same representation.
County A has 1 grammar school and 1 comprehensive. Count B has 2 comprehensives. The schools re of equal size.
County A sends 20 pupils to Oxbridge. 15 from the Grammar and 5 from the comp. County B sends 20, 10 from each.
Average number of pupils sent per school: 10. Average from Grammars 50% higher. Average from Comps: 17% lower
Difference between Counties: None.
No as 1 grammar on average sends more pupils on average to Oxbridge than two comprehensives
There are two schools in each County. All the Grammar has done is shift the pupils that would have gone to Oxbridge from the County A Comp to the Grammar.
The Grammar and Comp in the same County are drawing from the same population, they are not separate populations.
No as some of those candidates on the Oxbridge borderline would have made it from the grammar but not the comprehensive
Penny Mordaunt – Minister of State at DWP Mike Penning – Minister of State at MoD Brandon Lewis – Minister of State for Policing and the Fire Service at the Home Office Matt Hancock – Minister of State responsible for digital policy at DCMS Jane Ellison – Financial Secretary to the Treasury Jo Johnson – Minister of State at the Department for Education and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, leading on universities and science John Hayes – Minister of State at the Department for Transport Damian Hinds – Minister of State for the Department of Work and Pensions Greg Hands – Minister of State in the Department for International Trade Robert Goodwill – Minister of State for immigration in the Home Office Lord Price – Minister of State at the Department for International Trade Philip Dunne – Minister of State at the Department of Health Sir Oliver Heald – Minister of State at the Ministry of Justice Nick Hurd – Minister of State at Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy Ben Wallace – Minister of State for Security at the Home Office Baroness Williams – Minister of State at the Home Office Sir Alan Duncan – Minister of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office Baroness Anelay – Minister of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Department for International Development Earl Howe – Minister of State at the Ministry of Defence and Deputy Leader of the House of Lords Nick Gibb – Minister of State at the Department for Education Edward Timpson – Minister of State at the Department for Education Robert Halfon – Minister of State at the Department for Education David Jones – Minister of State at the Department for Exiting the European Union Baroness Neville-Rolfe – Minister of State at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Lord Freud – Minister of State for Welfare Reform at the Department for Work and Pensions Gavin Barwell – Minister of State for Housing, Planning and Minister for London at the Department for Communities and Local Government George Eustice – Minister of State at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Rory Stewart – Minister of State at the Department for International Development
A new generation of bright but poor kids getting ahead hopefully.
A new generation of just under the cutoff kids being stuffed in forgotten about sub standard schools.
The issue with grammar school was never the grammar schools, it was those stuck in the secondary moderns below.*
* says the man who hopes his daughter gets into Henrietta Barnett
I'm fairly certain I can run a successful school if I can pick the academically best children/parents in the area.
Of course, as I said before, the issue is that it sucks for the kids who don't make the cut.
Instead of closing grammar schools we should have focused on fixing secondary moderns. Many people didn't even have the chance to take O Levels because they ended up in the wrong school at the age of 11.
Secondary moderns were not really the problem -- it was the technical schools that were the third leg of the system, that would teach engineering and craft skills. Alas, all those labs, workshops and materials were very expensive, so almost none were opened.
Anecdote alert. In my area, in the late 40’s/early 50’s. the top 5 or so % of 11 year olds went to grammar schools, the next 5% or so to technical schools and the balance to sec.mod. I couldn’t understand then why it was assumed that why it was assumed that if one wasn’t “bright” enough on the day to go to a grammar school, one would be suitable for work in engineering, such as being a draughtsman.
More than twice as many September born babies made it to grammar schools than those - like me - born in August.
Indeed. And in my day the exam..... one off chance, win or bust ..... was in February. In the only area I know about now it is in September! We also, when my children were at that stage, in a situation where there were two places per sex from each local school for the Grammar Schools We were told that my son was one of three boys who would “pass”. However, only two would get Grammar places. On the day he had a cold, was third and for years afterwards, we later discovered, regarded himself as a 11+ failure. That was in his eyes, definitely not ours.We’d had to be persuaded to let him take the wretched exam.
Most grammars also have entry at 13 and 16
Back in my day, the odds were stacked against 13 year old entrants. Put in the fFrst form with 11 year olds.
I wonder if most of the problems in the English education system stem from the predominance in (perceived and possibly real) quality differences between Oxbridge and the rest of the Higher education system.
The same is not true in Scotland where a degree is a degree and even the brand new Universities do not have the stigma of England's ex-Polytechnics.
England is a very large country and to have its entire education system measured by how many kids get into two Universities should be a matter of some concern.
If Oxford and Cambridge did not exist, I think a lot of the problems would go away.
Wow what horrid backwards thinking. If only we could get rid of the excellent we would all be equal.
You do realise that Oxbridge are not the only excellent universities we have? Nor the only universities without the stigma of being ex polytechnics? What about the Russell Group "redbrick" universities? Would you abolish them too?
Indeed Oxbridge are the only non U.S. universities in the global top 10
Oxbridge has given us David Lammy and Diane Abbot. Sometimes I wonder about their selection criteria.
Mr. Lowlander, apologies for slightly tardy reply, was AFK.
That's the difference between prestige and reality, though. A knight is more prestigious than a peasant, but an awful lot of peasants are better off than knights.
Of course countries such as India , USA and Australia are anxious to set up bilateral trade deals quickly with a post Brexit UK . They see a country desperate to prove it can do better outside the EU and feel that they can use the opportunity to get very favourable trade terms for themselves out of that desperation .
The current position of the UK seems very similar to that of its pre-EU period between 1945 and 1970. Desperate to improve its trade position, blundering from crisis to crisis and other nations seeing a weak and feeble nation and picking the bones clean.
The idea of any nation offering decent terms to the UK at the moment is quite comical.
Which is precisely what many Remainers are hoping for.
I'm waiting for the "Buy British" campaign to start and a new "Export Drive" to be announced on a monthly basis.
The FT article is excellent if you can get past the paywall. It changed my mind on this issue.
So what about the commonly made claim that grammars boost social mobility? Maybe they do not increase everyone’s results, but do they close the rich-poor gap? Well, here is the average score attained by FSM-eligible children.
And the same attainment graph as before, but solely for FSM-eligible children:
You can see that poor children do dramatically worse in selective areas.
There is an narrower idea out there in the ether that grammar schools are better for propelling poor children to the very top of the tree. But, again, that is not true. Poor children are less likely to score very highly at GCSE in grammar areas than the rest. Note that the blue line is below the red on the very right hand side of the graph.
Indeed, I think this whole story is neatly encapsulated by one graph to follow. If you plot how well children do on average by household deprivation for selective areas and for the rest of the country, you can see that the net effect of grammar schools is to disadvantage poor children and help the rich.
At the left hand side of the graph, where poor children’s results are, you can see selective areas do much worse. At the very right, you can see a few very rich children do better. This is all driven by the process of selection itself: poor children are more likely to be behind at the age of 11, and less likely to get places in grammars.
Selective areas like Buckinghamshire and Trafford have above average GCSE results overall and above average Oxbridge entry, that FT article looked solely at free school meals pupils for whom results on comprehensive areas like Knowsley are equally woeful
You need to control for wealth. I am sure that Bucks and Trafford would do fine whatever the system
The problem is grammars are now concentrated most in wealthier areas rather than poorer areas where they are needed most. Anyway about to watch the cricket so will leave it there
A new generation of bright but poor kids getting ahead hopefully.
A new generation of just under the cutoff kids being stuffed in forgotten about sub standard schools.
The issue with grammar school was never the grammar schools, it was those stuck in the secondary moderns below
I think I'd get lynched if I moaned about my wife's schooling preference!
Personally I'm a fan of setting in schools.
It's a bit more complex administratively, but can certainly be done if you have a reasonably sized pupil population. And for more specialist subjects, I see no problem with teachers working across 2-3 schools (although there should be a core group of teachers within each school)
The research I saw showed that setting was definitely good for those at the top who are no longer held back. It could be good for those at the bottom providing they aren't just dumped in a "don't bother" tank and do get extra support. Setting is not good for those in the middle as they will just coast, whereas mixing in the best students encourages them to do better. Emulation is the most powerful driver of improvement.
The political problem with grammar schools is that parents (collectively) don't like them. You are happy if you are the 20% of parents whose child goes to grammar school and unhappy if you are the 80% of parents whose child goes to a school that by definition is second-rate. The 80% will outvote the 20%.
I wonder whether the constituency of support for grammars is mostly the population of adults (like me) who actually went to them, back in the day when it was more common? If so, I would expect it to be slowly dropping down the public's list of priorities.
Another big but not-often-considered issue is the proportion of school places within an authority that are grammar. My authority has just two grammar schools, a much lower proportion than is/was typical in areas with selective schools. Not surprisingly both schools have a very good reputation, and also unsurprisingly the entrance exams are very competitive and generate a lot of concern and complaint from parents. On the upside, however, because such a small slice of the pupil base is going into the grammars, the impact on all the other schools is marginal (just a few pupils from each other school per year group, on average) and therefore they don't have the 'secondary modern' problems that can be the very real downside of selective education. Indeed most of the schools are good and the exam statistics, for what they are worth, put the authority at the upper end.
The Sun also reports May is ready to open a wave of new grammar schools tearing up rules banning the opening of new selective schools and allowing them to expand where local parents want them in the most significant departure yet from the Cameron administration
Excellent.
Yes a big piece of red meat for Tory activists which will go down well with Tory voters too and a clear rejection of Cameron's decision to turn his back on new grammars in 2007 which caused a row with many of his backbenchers
I am in favour of academic excellence and selection accordingly. This is encouraging news. It will give fantastic opportunities to bright kids from working class backgrounds.
However, I'm still not convinced that a make or break test at 11 years old (the old way) is the right way to go about it. And I'd want to see comprehensive/technical or other specialist/free schools being just as good for those who don't go down that academic route.
If grammar schools are coming back, we have to be very careful not to bring back the problems of the old system again as well. Or they won't last..
Selective areas like Buckinghamshire and Trafford have above average GCSE results overall and above average Oxbridge entry, that FT article looked solely at free school meals pupils for whom results on comprehensive areas like Knowsley are equally woeful
I'm sorry, but the article's conclusions are stark, and driven by data. Very rarely do I read something that changes my mind: that article changed my mind.
A new generation of bright but poor kids getting ahead hopefully.
A new generation of just under the cutoff kids being stuffed in forgotten about sub standard schools.
The issue with grammar school was never the grammar schools, it was those stuck in the secondary moderns below.*
* says the man who hopes his daughter gets into Henrietta Barnett
I'm fairly certain I can run a successful school if I can pick the academically best children/parents in the area.
The major reason you want your kid to go to a grammar school, is that you want your kid to go to a school where all the other parents are obsessive about education.
Of course, as I said before, the issue is that it sucks for the kids who don't make the cut.
Not necessarily, selective Trafford has above average GCSE results overall
You can see that poor children do dramatically worse in selective areas.
There is an narrower idea out there in the ether that grammar schools are better for propelling poor children to the very top of the tree. But, again, that is not true. Poor children are less likely to score very highly at GCSE in grammar areas than the rest. Note that the blue line is below the red on the very right hand side of the graph.
Indeed, I think this whole story is neatly encapsulated by one graph to follow. If you plot how well children do on average by household deprivation for selective areas and for the rest of the country, you can see that the net effect of grammar schools is to disadvantage poor children and help the rich.
At the left hand side of the graph, where poor children’s results are, you can see selective areas do much worse. At the very right, you can see a few very rich children do better. This is all driven by the process of selection itself: poor children are more likely to be behind at the age of 11, and less likely to get places in grammars.
Selective areas like Buckinghamshire and Trafford have above average GCSE results overall and above average Oxbridge entry, that FT article looked solely at free school meals pupils for whom results on comprehensive areas like Knowsley are equally woeful
It is generally true that educational researchers are skewed significantly to the left and surprisingly produce a flow of research studies which supports the predilections of the authors.
The FT article is excellent if you can get past the paywall. It changed my mind on this issue.
So what about the commonly made claim that grammars boost social mobility? Maybe they do not increase everyone’s results, but do they close the rich-poor gap? Well, here is the average score attained by FSM-eligible children.
And the same attainment graph as before, but solely for FSM-eligible children:
You can see that poor children do dramatically worse in selective areas.
There is an narrower idea out there in the ether that grammar schools are better for propelling poor children to the very top of the tree. But, again, that is not true. Poor children are less likely to score very highly at GCSE in grammar areas than the rest. Note that the blue line is below the red on the very right hand side of the graph.
Indeed, I think this whole story is neatly encapsulated by one graph to follow. If you plot how well children do on average by household deprivation for selective areas and for the rest of the country, you can see that the net effect of grammar schools is to disadvantage poor children and help the rich.
At the left hand side of the graph, where poor children’s results are, you can see selective areas do much worse. At the very right, you can see a few very rich children do better. This is all driven by the process of selection itself: poor children are more likely to be behind at the age of 11, and less likely to get places in grammars.
Selective areas like Buckinghamshire and Trafford have above average GCSE results overall and above average Oxbridge entry, that FT article looked solely at free school meals pupils for whom results on comprehensive areas like Knowsley are equally woeful
You need to control for wealth. I am sure that Bucks and Trafford would do fine whatever the system
Also the Bucks Grammar schools nowadays grab an awful large number of bright children from the surrounding areas. I know both Challoner's High and Grammar in Amersham now gets a lot of children from as far away as Harrow (as its a 25 minute train journey).
One side effect is that fewer children from Bucks are getting into those schools which is proving a nightmare for parents of children in Year 6 (best start Saturday morning tutoring in Year 4 or you haven't got a chance)... It has however had on effect on the secondary moderns (previously they got only the bottom 70% of pupils now its more like the bottom 80-85%)...
Yes a big piece of red meat for Tory activists which will go down well with Tory voters too and a clear rejection of Cameron's decision to turn his back on new grammars in 2007 which caused a row with many of his backbenchers
I've always been a firm supporter of grammar schools but with one significant proviso.
Essentially funding needs to be skewed to non grammars schools with teachers prepared to work in failing schools paid more.
Angela Eagle's entire pitch on Marr is 'because I'm a woman'.
As a woman, I find that profoundly irritating. I didn't get appointed to my role because I'm a woman, I got it because I beat all the other candidates to prove I was the best person for the role.
And that's why Labour is still yet to have a permanent female leader.
A new generation of bright but poor kids getting ahead hopefully.
A new generation of just under the cutoff kids being stuffed in forgotten about sub standard schools.
The issue with grammar school was never the grammar schools, it was those stuck in the secondary moderns below.*
* says the man who hopes his daughter gets into Henrietta Barnett
Of course, as I said before, the issue is that it sucks for the kids who don't make the cut.
Instead of closing grammar schools we should have focused on fixing secondary moderns. Many people didn't even have the chance to take O Levels because they ended up in the wrong school at the age of 11.
Secondary moderns were not really the problem -- it was the technical schools that were the third leg of the system, that would teach engineering and craft skills. Alas, all those labs, workshops and materials were very expensive, so almost none were opened.
Anecdote alert. In my area, in the late 40’s/early 50’s. the top 5 or so % of 11 year olds went to grammar schools, the next 5% or so to technical schools and the balance to sec.mod. I couldn’t understand then why it was assumed that why it was assumed that if one wasn’t “bright” enough on the day to go to a grammar school, one would be suitable for work in engineering, such as being a draughtsman.
More than twice as many September born babies made it to grammar schools than those - like me - born in August.
Indeed. And in my day the exam..... one off chance, win or bust ..... was in February. In the only area I know about now it is in September! We also, when my children were at that stage, in a situation where there were two places per sex from each local school for the Grammar Schools We were told that my son was one of three boys who would “pass”. However, only two would get Grammar places. On the day he had a cold, was third and for years afterwards, we later discovered, regarded himself as a 11+ failure. That was in his eyes, definitely not ours.We’d had to be persuaded to let him take the wretched exam.
Most grammars also have entry at 13 and 16
When i ran the admissions at my Kent grammar school we admitted whenever there was a vacancy as well as the main intakes at 11 and 16.
Yes a big piece of red meat for Tory activists which will go down well with Tory voters too and a clear rejection of Cameron's decision to turn his back on new grammars in 2007 which caused a row with many of his backbenchers
I've always been a firm supporter of grammar schools but with one significant proviso.
Essentially funding needs to be skewed to non grammars schools with teachers prepared to work in failing schools paid more.
The question that always comes to me is why the UK seems to (uniquely) require grammar schools.
It does not seem to be a system found anywhere else in the developed world and better outcomes seem to come from other countries comprehensive systems. Is there even evidence that it works, for example, do people from Kent have better outcomes than people from demographically similar counties?
The whole argument in favour of them seems to incorporate elements of the NIMBY mentality with "something must be done, this is something".
You think no other nations have academic selection? It's a view ...
My wife is Bulgarian. She is absolutely baffled as to why it's even an issue in the UK.
Re Grammars: I think we need to pick an area and have an experiment. Make sure we know what success looks like (social mobility, better grades across the spectrum), and see what works.
Heck, let's have a couple of different experiments: remembering to add technical schools and the like. Include employability of school leavers as a measure of success.
The Sun also reports May is ready to open a wave of new grammar schools tearing up rules banning the opening of new selective schools and allowing them to expand where local parents want them in the most significant departure yet from the Cameron administration
Excellent.
Yes a big piece of red meat for Tory activists which will go down well with Tory voters too and a clear rejection of Cameron's decision to turn his back on new grammars in 2007 which caused a row with many of his backbenchers
I am in favour of academic excellence and selection accordingly. This is encouraging news. It will give fantastic opportunities to bright kids from working class backgrounds.
However, I'm still not convinced that a make or break test at 11 years old (the old way) is the right way to go about it. And I'd want to see comprehensive/technical or other specialist/free schools being just as good for those who don't go down that academic route.
If grammar schools are coming back, we have to be very careful not to bring back the problems of the old system again as well. Or they won't last..
Exactly. The idea that you bring back grammars and then worry about the 'rest' later is politically implausible. Unlike many on the liberal/left I don't oppose academic selection in principle. What worries me is that the re-introduction of them has tended to be advocated by social darwinists and those who want a strong class system - albeit one with a fair amount of mobility.
Re Grammars: I think we need to pick an area and have an experiment. Make sure we know what success looks like (social mobility, better grades across the spectrum), and see what works.
Heck, let's have a couple of different experiments: remembering to add technical schools and the like. Include employability of school leavers as a measure of success.
Let's be evidence driven guys.
Scotland has absolutely no selection and no Grammars and the top education system in the UK. NI still has the 11+ and has the worst.
A new generation of bright but poor kids getting ahead hopefully.
A new generation of just under the cutoff kids being stuffed in forgotten about sub standard schools.
The issue with grammar school was never the grammar schools, it was those stuck in the secondary moderns below.*
* says the man who hopes his daughter gets into Henrietta Barnett
I think I'd get lynched if I moaned about my wife's schooling preference!
Any parent who does not do all that they can to ensure their child(ren) get the best possible education they can is, in my view, guilty of child abuse.
Grammar schools are a great idea for about 10% of children who would benefit from university education. And therein is the rub, we have a national target of sending 50% of our children to university. To just allow areas to re-introduce grammar schools without fixing the rest of the system (restoring freedom to teachers, technical schools, age of selection, return of the polytechnics etc.) would, in my view, be very wrong - a middle class rip-off.
Personally I'm a fan of setting in schools.
It's a bit more complex administratively, but can certainly be done if you have a reasonably sized pupil population. And for more specialist subjects, I see no problem with teachers working across 2-3 schools (although there should be a core group of teachers within each school)
The research I saw showed that setting was definitely good for those at the top who are no longer held back. It could be good for those at the bottom providing they aren't just dumped in a "don't bother" tank and do get extra support. Setting is not good for those in the middle as they will just coast, whereas mixing in the best students encourages them to do better. Emulation is the most powerful driver of improvement.
The political problem with grammar schools is that parents (collectively) don't like them. You are happy if you are the 20% of parents whose child goes to grammar school and unhappy if you are the 80% of parents whose child goes to a school that by definition is second-rate. The 80% will outvote the 20%.
I read "somewhere" that 40% is the key.
If you have a solid 40% of the electorate supporting you, you are safe. 20% just isn't enough.
What killed off grammar schools the first time is that just not enough of the dumber middle-class kids were getting into them.
Re Grammars: I think we need to pick an area and have an experiment. Make sure we know what success looks like (social mobility, better grades across the spectrum), and see what works.
Heck, let's have a couple of different experiments: remembering to add technical schools and the like. Include employability of school leavers as a measure of success.
Let's be evidence driven guys.
Scotland has absolutely no selection and no Grammars and the top education system in the UK. NI still has the 11+ and has the worst.
That doesn't mean that experimentation should stop.
Re Grammars: I think we need to pick an area and have an experiment. Make sure we know what success looks like (social mobility, better grades across the spectrum), and see what works.
Heck, let's have a couple of different experiments: remembering to add technical schools and the like. Include employability of school leavers as a measure of success.
Let's be evidence driven guys.
Whose parents are going to volunteer for their kids to be the experiment?
Do we have a new defence under secretary for military welfare and veterans yet? I need to know who will be the latest in line to send apologies for not attending my meetings.
Comments
Mr. Charles, not sure. Also worth noting that things can be acquired through the exchange of money for goods/services, it's not theft-only.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-36818050
Probably plays well with the Labour membership, but others here are better qualified to say if that's the case.
The same is not true in Scotland where a degree is a degree and even the brand new Universities do not have the stigma of England's ex-Polytechnics.
England is a very large country and to have its entire education system measured by how many kids get into two Universities should be a matter of some concern.
If Oxford and Cambridge did not exist, I think a lot of the problems would go away.
It's a bit more complex administratively, but can certainly be done if you have a reasonably sized pupil population. And for more specialist subjects, I see no problem with teachers working across 2-3 schools (although there should be a core group of teachers within each school)
But I repeat myself.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-36772954
A question for the memoirs is whether Gove/Morgan/whoever was inspired by seeing it discussed on this here pb.
You do realise that Oxbridge are not the only excellent universities we have? Nor the only universities without the stigma of being ex polytechnics? What about the Russell Group "redbrick" universities? Would you abolish them too?
My point is that there is a particular focus in English education on two specific institutions which does not exist elsewhere. It is not about excellence being bad, it is about a very narrow, limited focus (which may not even have a real world basis).
EDIT
"As a WTO Member and signatory of the EU’s Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) in its own right, the UK will continue to be bound by these obligations and should expect other countries to reciprocate. To do so would be in the interest of both parties: aside from the basic economic benefits of free trade, continuing to honour their FTAs with the UK would require no additional negotiation and would maintain the status quo; to repudiate them would result in the raising of tariff barriers and increased costs for both exporters and importers in the partner countries as well as the UK. Whilst it might not be a priority for all of these partners to negotiate an FTA with the UK if one did not exist already, maintaining an existing one would almost always be advantageous."
p.14
http://www.iea.org.uk/publications/research/the-iea-brexit-prize-a-blueprint-for-britain-openness-not-isolation
The Head [of the OFSTED Outstanding school] was rather Oh. He'd been pretty certain that his methods were better. A fascinating journey to watch.
On a side note we have some very poor "universities" in the country of offering degrees of very dubious worth. Yet they charge their students the same as a top notch uni. Why that is allowed is beyond me.
Also, good. Let's hope she wins, or at least beats Smith.
The metric is broader. A broader metric would be quite helpful for deciding whether or not the English system of education is working.
**possibly not up to date but was the conventional wisdom back in my day
I agree that Corbyn is not a Trot but the problem you have is that he is the idenkit picture of what most believe think a Trot would be like
The political problem with grammar schools is that parents (collectively) don't like them. You are happy if you are the 20% of parents whose child goes to grammar school and unhappy if you are the 80% of parents whose child goes to a school that by definition is second-rate. The 80% will outvote the 20%.
The government thought that the 'free market' would mean they would know their place and set fees lower than Oxbridge/Russell Group. Of course, the Vice-Chancellors said 'Excellent, £9,000 per student per annum!' and gave themselves a payrise.
It's a while since I looked, but Leeds Met [since renamed, I forget to what] was/is one of the best for sports psychology. Durham, Liverpool, Leeds are all fine universities.
Whilst Oxford and Cambridge to have a lot of prestige, it's not there or bust. There are plenty of top universities in England.
IIRC the EU runs on a calendar year - so Article 50 on 31st Dec 2016 makes sense.
"However, the Telegraph has learned that senior government officials have been told to being working to a timetable under which Article 50 is triggered by Christmas this year.
Once the Prime Minister has informed the EU that Britain is invoking Article 50, a two year countdown begins during which negotiations are held over the terms under which the UK will leave.
David Davis, the Secretary of State for Exiting the EU, has previously said he wants to trigger Article 50 by the end of this year."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/07/16/cabinet-clash-over-date-to-trigger-article-50-and-brexit-talks/
Using the metric of entry to Oxbridge is a very bad way to judge the success of the education system overall.
You should have a system where there is a recut of the sets at the end of every academic year & try to create a culture where is is a good thing to be in the top sets. To a significant extent this is because kids who are naturally in the middle of the pack will be in relatively higher sets in some subjects and so they will see the rewards of hard work in person - it's why setting is far better than streaming.
I couldn’t understand then why it was assumed that why it was assumed that if one wasn’t “bright” enough on the day to go to a grammar school, one would be suitable for work in engineering, such as being a draughtsman.
The conversation I'd like to see is simply this. Do we really want or need half of our school leavers to go to university? For many degrees the graduate premium is either negligible or in some cases, negative.
As an added complication, which I think is what Lowlander was getting at, is the "halo effect" enjoyed by some establishments because employers tend to recruit only from "top" universities -- operationally defined as Oxbridge and the hiring manager's own alma mater.
The Grammar and Comp in the same County are drawing from the same population, they are not separate populations.
Doesn't that require us to remain inside the EU dispute resolution mechanism? Which we can do, but would require us to negotiate that with our EU partners on exit, and might be something we're not 100% comfortable with.
However I disagree with him when he argues only one MP should oppose Corbyn.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-36799983
It doesn't make sense (except to knock out Eagle before the vote).
Smith will appeal to some Corbyn waverers and Eagle will appeal to others. Between them, they should reduce Corbyn's first preferences. They are likely to pick up one another's second preferences from anti-Corbyn voters. No-one knows which of the two will appeal most to the membership. Rather than MPs or the NEC choose one of them, it is surely best that it is left to the membership if Smith and Eagle really want to defeat Corbyn.
They need a lesson in AV.
We also, when my children were at that stage, in a situation where there were two places per sex from each local school for the Grammar Schools We were told that my son was one of three boys who would “pass”. However, only two would get Grammar places. On the day he had a cold, was third and for years afterwards, we later discovered, regarded himself as a 11+ failure. That was in his eyes, definitely not ours.We’d had to be persuaded to let him take the wretched exam.
https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankings/2016/world-ranking#!/page/0/length/25/country/0/sort_by/rank_label/sort_order/asc
Penny Mordaunt – Minister of State at DWP
Mike Penning – Minister of State at MoD
Brandon Lewis – Minister of State for Policing and the Fire Service at the Home Office
Matt Hancock – Minister of State responsible for digital policy at DCMS
Jane Ellison – Financial Secretary to the Treasury
Jo Johnson – Minister of State at the Department for Education and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, leading on universities and science
John Hayes – Minister of State at the Department for Transport
Damian Hinds – Minister of State for the Department of Work and Pensions
Greg Hands – Minister of State in the Department for International Trade
Robert Goodwill – Minister of State for immigration in the Home Office
Lord Price – Minister of State at the Department for International Trade
Philip Dunne – Minister of State at the Department of Health
Sir Oliver Heald – Minister of State at the Ministry of Justice
Nick Hurd – Minister of State at Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy
Ben Wallace – Minister of State for Security at the Home Office
Baroness Williams – Minister of State at the Home Office
Sir Alan Duncan – Minister of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office
Baroness Anelay – Minister of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Department for International Development
Earl Howe – Minister of State at the Ministry of Defence and Deputy Leader of the House of Lords
Nick Gibb – Minister of State at the Department for Education
Edward Timpson – Minister of State at the Department for Education
Robert Halfon – Minister of State at the Department for Education
David Jones – Minister of State at the Department for Exiting the European Union
Baroness Neville-Rolfe – Minister of State at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
Lord Freud – Minister of State for Welfare Reform at the Department for Work and Pensions
Gavin Barwell – Minister of State for Housing, Planning and Minister for London at the Department for Communities and Local Government
George Eustice – Minister of State at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Rory Stewart – Minister of State at the Department for International Development
Loads more here
http://order-order.com/2016/07/17/new-junior-minister-appointments/
That's the difference between prestige and reality, though. A knight is more prestigious than a peasant, but an awful lot of peasants are better off than knights.
Shadow Education Secretary. Woeful.
Another big but not-often-considered issue is the proportion of school places within an authority that are grammar. My authority has just two grammar schools, a much lower proportion than is/was typical in areas with selective schools. Not surprisingly both schools have a very good reputation, and also unsurprisingly the entrance exams are very competitive and generate a lot of concern and complaint from parents. On the upside, however, because such a small slice of the pupil base is going into the grammars, the impact on all the other schools is marginal (just a few pupils from each other school per year group, on average) and therefore they don't have the 'secondary modern' problems that can be the very real downside of selective education. Indeed most of the schools are good and the exam statistics, for what they are worth, put the authority at the upper end.
However, I'm still not convinced that a make or break test at 11 years old (the old way) is the right way to go about it. And I'd want to see comprehensive/technical or other specialist/free schools being just as good for those who don't go down that academic route.
If grammar schools are coming back, we have to be very careful not to bring back the problems of the old system again as well. Or they won't last..
@MarrShow: .@NicolaSturgeon says Scotland has a veto over Brexit #marr https://t.co/R5BPg1ugjM
One side effect is that fewer children from Bucks are getting into those schools which is proving a nightmare for parents of children in Year 6 (best start Saturday morning tutoring in Year 4 or you haven't got a chance)... It has however had on effect on the secondary moderns (previously they got only the bottom 70% of pupils now its more like the bottom 80-85%)...
In China, they laugh their socks off.
Heck, let's have a couple of different experiments: remembering to add technical schools and the like. Include employability of school leavers as a measure of success.
Let's be evidence driven guys.
If you have a solid 40% of the electorate supporting you, you are safe. 20% just isn't enough.
What killed off grammar schools the first time is that just not enough of the dumber middle-class kids were getting into them.
8% of the way there, but 10% of the wickets down