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.
True.
But surely we need to try different things than the Grammar system. I'd like to see some implementation of a MAGNET/Gymnasium hybrid system (no academic MAGNETS but focused on Technical/Vocational and smaller numbers of Sports, Arts and Music).
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?
We run experiments all the time. The alternative is never making anything better. (Or, worse, making decisions without any evidence whatsoever.)
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.
The evidence worldwide is that academic selection by merit opens up opportunities to the brightest from any background.
We accept such selection in the UK in music, dance, art and sport (particularly sport) but seem to baulk at it for academics.
I think that's a cultural objection, not an empirical one.
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.
Ironically County Durham doesn't have Grammar Schools but is about to get a University Technical College founded by Sunderland (Poly) and Hitachi Rail...
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.
In China, they laugh their socks off.
A separate question is how much this matters, and why. The United States has very little selective secondary education, is mediocre at best in the PISA rankings, and yet has world class universities and probably the most productive and enterprising economy in the world.
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
Only one of my three friends seems to have made it to junior ministerial level...
Lord Freud at Welfare Reform caught my eye - he's still there though not sure if it's a different job per se. He was doing UC before according to Wiki.
Rory gets a job too. I remain ambivalent about him myself.
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.
The evidence worldwide is that academic selection by merit opens up opportunities to the brightest from any background.
We accept such selection in the UK in music, dance, art and sport (particularly sport) but seem to baulk at it for academics.
I think that's a cultural objection, not an empirical one.
But the grammar school system (as we have in Bucks, etc.) seems to reduce social mobility, and lower grades across the board for the poorest. In other words, it does exactly the opposite of what it is claimed to do.
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
Only one of my three friends seems to have made it to junior ministerial level...
Lord Freud at Welfare Reform caught my eye - he's still there though not sure if it's a different job per se. He was doing UC before according to Wiki.
Rory gets a job too. I remain ambivalent about him myself.
Some familiar looking surnames in that list. It's not just Labour where politics is a family business.
You think no other nations have academic selection? It's a view ...
Academic selection at 11, which then decides your level until 16 or maybe 18, is fairly unusual, IIUC. Aside from the arguments for selection, it's really hard to see why you'd do it at those particular ages. I don't think anyone in Britain wouldn't be advocating this model if they hadn't had it once before for random historical reasons.
It seems to me that Lowlander's desperate desire to rubbish English Universities so that he can compare them to Scotland is specious. The two are not comparable due to the near 10:1 size difference; Yorkshire or the West Midlands would be a more apposite comparison.
In the Times Top 200 Universities, there are 34 UK Universities. 5 are Scottish.
The Scottish performance is more closely comparable to a reasonably successful English region than to the whole country. Given the populations, that is hardly surprising.
Oxord Cambridge Imperial UCL LSE Edinburgh KCL Manchester Bristol Durham Glasgow Warwick St Andrews Exeter Sheffield Queen Mary, London Southampton Birmingham Royal Holloway, London Lancaster York Leeds Sussex Nottingham East Anglia Liverpool Reading Leicester Aberdeen Cardiff Dundee Newcastle St Georges, London Queens, Belfast
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.
I think there's quite a bit of evidence that leading lower middle class/working class politicians in both the Labour and Conservative parties over the age of 50 are there in no small part by virtue of the excellent grammar school educations they had in the 1960s and early 1970s.
That option has been closed down to quite a few kids since.
Conversely, there's quite a bit of evidence to say social mobility has gone backwards in the last 20-30 years, and it's abundantly clear there is a wholesale dominance of the professions by the privately educated. And we'd had things like nod-nod, wink-wink unpaid internships to reinforce it.
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.
The evidence worldwide is that academic selection by merit opens up opportunities to the brightest from any background.
We accept such selection in the UK in music, dance, art and sport (particularly sport) but seem to baulk at it for academics.
I think that's a cultural objection, not an empirical one.
Is it?
For example MAGNET does not always make academic selection (some districts do but not all). Mainly its Technical, Arts, music. Gymnasium is effectively selection for Technical.
As far as I can see, academic focus should be the base level with the selection made for non-academic focus.
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.
Quite right.
The problem with educational policy in England is that the 'best' of other educational systems is desired, without the planning and investment that those countries have put in to achieve high quality outcomes/destinations.
The recent conversion to Chinese mathematics teaching methodologies, and the attempt to implement Core Maths post 16 are prime examples. No proper planning, no realistic attempt to increase teacher supply - Nick Gibb explicitly said that the main features which make the Chinese system so successful (teaching lesson planning time and collaborative curriculum planning) can't happen as we have insufficient resources.
My solution to the grammar school issue is to allow academies to select by academic ability (and how they select is up to them - it does not necessary have to involve an entry exam, but rather an assessment of ability over the previous years) where the local (could be done by local authority, or a smaller area) population agrees to it (by way of a referendum or possibly the local authority's council voting).
Surely that is an acceptable way forward? And of course these selective academies would not necessarily call themselves grammar schools either.
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.
The evidence worldwide is that academic selection by merit opens up opportunities to the brightest from any background.
We accept such selection in the UK in music, dance, art and sport (particularly sport) but seem to baulk at it for academics.
I think that's a cultural objection, not an empirical one.
But the grammar school system (as we have in Bucks, etc.) seems to reduce social mobility, and lower grades across the board for the poorest. In other words, it does exactly the opposite of what it is claimed to do.
I agree, and have said downthread, that a make or break test at 11 is not the answer.
However, academic selection should not be taboo. I'm open to both setting in big schools, but, also, smaller academic elite schools.
You think no other nations have academic selection? It's a view ...
Academic selection at 11, which then decides your level until 16 or maybe 18, is fairly unusual, IIUC. Aside from the arguments for selection, it's really hard to see why you'd do it at those particular ages. I don't think anyone in Britain wouldn't be advocating this model if they hadn't had it once before for random historical reasons.
Conservatives are always trying to re-create a supposed utopian past. I'm happy to debate the issue of selection but not the sort of retrograde nonsense you perfectly debunk.
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.
The evidence worldwide is that academic selection by merit opens up opportunities to the brightest from any background.
We accept such selection in the UK in music, dance, art and sport (particularly sport) but seem to baulk at it for academics.
I think that's a cultural objection, not an empirical one.
But the grammar school system (as we have in Bucks, etc.) seems to reduce social mobility, and lower grades across the board for the poorest. In other words, it does exactly the opposite of what it is claimed to do.
I agree, and have said downthread, that a make or break test at 11 is not the answer.
However, academic selection should not be taboo. I'm open to both setting in big schools, but, also, smaller academic elite schools.
I have no issue with that.
(As I'm hoping my daughter makes it to the local grammar, it would be deeply hypocritical of me to do so.)
You can be brilliant at Maths and useless at English. You can be brilliant at languages but hopeless at geography. Brilliant at art and rubbish at history. Permutate ad infinitum. The 11+ is a very crude measure of prediction for academic ability, and is likely not great at picking out true excellence.
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.
Mark Lancaster has the MOD Under Sec job - no more detail than that so far.
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.
The evidence worldwide is that academic selection by merit opens up opportunities to the brightest from any background.
We accept such selection in the UK in music, dance, art and sport (particularly sport) but seem to baulk at it for academics.
I think that's a cultural objection, not an empirical one.
But the grammar school system (as we have in Bucks, etc.) seems to reduce social mobility, and lower grades across the board for the poorest. In other words, it does exactly the opposite of what it is claimed to do.
No it does not, look at comprehensive Knowsley or Nottingham or Portsmouth for example
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.
NI actually has some of the best GCSE results in the UK, some areas of Scotland like Glasgow amongst the worst
On bbcsp London a Labour councillor has neatly summarised Labour's problems thus: "the leader is divorced from the MPs, the MPs are divorced from the members, and the members are divorced from the public".
Mr. Runnymede, certainly a four letter of some variety.
Anyway, as is traditional when struggling to start something I'm going to leave the computer and use ye olde pen and paper. And possibly also read more of Dodge's second volume of his Napoleonic biography.
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.
The evidence worldwide is that academic selection by merit opens up opportunities to the brightest from any background.
We accept such selection in the UK in music, dance, art and sport (particularly sport) but seem to baulk at it for academics.
I think that's a cultural objection, not an empirical one.
But the grammar school system (as we have in Bucks, etc.) seems to reduce social mobility, and lower grades across the board for the poorest. In other words, it does exactly the opposite of what it is claimed to do.
No it does not, look at comprehensive Knowsley or Nottingham or Portsmouth for example
Dude: the data is clear and unambiguous. Combining cognitive dissonance and argument from anecdote does not make you any more persuasive.
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.
The evidence worldwide is that academic selection by merit opens up opportunities to the brightest from any background.
We accept such selection in the UK in music, dance, art and sport (particularly sport) but seem to baulk at it for academics.
I think that's a cultural objection, not an empirical one.
But the grammar school system (as we have in Bucks, etc.) seems to reduce social mobility, and lower grades across the board for the poorest. In other words, it does exactly the opposite of what it is claimed to do.
No it does not, look at comprehensive Knowsley or Nottingham or Portsmouth for example
The problem with Knowsley is not no grammars. It's that there are no good jobs and bad life chances in Knowsley, and no spare cash to create more opportunities for kids. (EDIT: Interestingly Knowsley despite its very significant deprivation and low racial minority % was practically bang-on the national average for REMAIN v LEAVE. Which makes you think it was not just a story of haves v have-nots.)
If there's a Commons vote and we don't leave the EU, the electoral implications are enormous.
Article 50 is vague. However, it's possibly more important that the EU accept the invocation in whatever form we choose. I'll leave it to the constitutional theologians to debate whether the referendum act implicitly recognises parliamentary supremacy in re a Brexit result.
If Merkel is happy for Theresa to do it via a quick phone call ("It's not you Angela, it's me"), then the clock starts ticking.
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.
Grammars were killed off because they worked and Labour were terrified of that.
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.
The biggest problem in the education debate is that we've all been to school and consider ourselves experts. Like sex and driving perhaps, but unlike health: we don't consider having an operation gives us any great insight into the next generation of cancer drugs.
Even Michael Gove, who certainly wanted to improve schools, fell into this trap. Despite not being an historian, he wanted to dictate the history curriculum, as well as English iirc. Similarly, there was no evidence for free schools, or for Labour's academies.
Maths teaching like this started in Russia, where they did what we never do and asked two sets of experts. They asked the mathematicians what should be taught, and asked the psychologists how to teach it.
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.
I've only experienced it first hand at my school - with a population of 1,250 or so it worked ok (although it was not particularly resource constrained).
Floating teachers I'm only thinking about for minor subjects - I believe we had floating teachers for Russian and Mandarin, for instance, but more mainstream subjects like Latin and Greek had full time employees.
But yes, ultimately, a lot flows from empowering teachers with appropriate authority and trusting them to get on with the job. I would remove the right of parents to appeal decisions!
If there's a Commons vote and we don't leave the EU, the electoral implications are enormous.
Article 50 is vague. However, it's possibly more important that the EU accept the invocation in whatever form we choose. I'll leave it to the constitutional theologians to debate whether the referendum act implicitly recognises parliamentary supremacy in re a Brexit result.
If Merkel is happy for Theresa to do it via a quick phone call ("It's not you Angela, it's me"), then the clock starts ticking.
I think a parliamentary vote is both appropriate and probably a requirement. But Oakeshott is just trying to make a story of it by suggesting it won't go through. Even grieve said he would vote for it.
It seems to me that Lowlander's desperate desire to rubbish English Universities so that he can compare them to Scotland is specious. The two are not comparable due to the near 10:1 size difference; Yorkshire or the West Midlands would be a more apposite comparison.
In the Times Top 200 Universities, there are 34 UK Universities. 5 are Scottish.
The Scottish performance is more closely comparable to a reasonably successful English region than to the whole country. Given the populations, that is hardly surprising.
Oxord Cambridge Imperial UCL LSE Edinburgh KCL Manchester Bristol Durham Glasgow Warwick St Andrews Exeter Sheffield Queen Mary, London Southampton Birmingham Royal Holloway, London Lancaster York Leeds Sussex Nottingham East Anglia Liverpool Reading Leicester Aberdeen Cardiff Dundee Newcastle St Georges, London Queens, Belfast
Seems to me you cannot count. Scotland has 15% of the UK's Uni's in the top 200 but just 8% of the population and leads you to try and say they are only comparable to a region , what a turnip. You prove Lowlanders point perfectly.
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.
The evidence worldwide is that academic selection by merit opens up opportunities to the brightest from any background.
We accept such selection in the UK in music, dance, art and sport (particularly sport) but seem to baulk at it for academics.
I think that's a cultural objection, not an empirical one.
But the grammar school system (as we have in Bucks, etc.) seems to reduce social mobility, and lower grades across the board for the poorest. In other words, it does exactly the opposite of what it is claimed to do.
No it does not, look at comprehensive Knowsley or Nottingham or Portsmouth for example
The problem with Knowsley is not no grammars. It's that there are no good jobs and bad life chances in Knowsley, and no spare cash to create more opportunities for kids.
True but grammars gave opportunity to move out and get a higher paid job in a City and also a more educated population at the tob would create more professional opportunities and businesses in areas like Knowsley
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.
NI actually has some of the best GCSE results in the UK, some areas of Scotland like Glasgow amongst the worst
Yawn, all areas will have some of the worst, get that chip off your shoulder.
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.
In China, they laugh their socks off.
A separate question is how much this matters, and why. The United States has very little selective secondary education, is mediocre at best in the PISA rankings, and yet has world class universities and probably the most productive and enterprising economy in the world.
At the university level money makes a huge difference
If there's a Commons vote and we don't leave the EU, the electoral implications are enormous.
Article 50 is vague. However, it's possibly more important that the EU accept the invocation in whatever form we choose. I'll leave it to the constitutional theologians to debate whether the referendum act implicitly recognises parliamentary supremacy in re a Brexit result.
If Merkel is happy for Theresa to do it via a quick phone call ("It's not you Angela, it's me"), then the clock starts ticking.
I think a parliamentary vote is both appropriate and probably a requirement. But Oakeshott is just trying to make a story of it by suggesting it won't go through. Even grieve said he would vote for it.
My levels of paranoia are low. I'm just not going to take any particular person's word for it (even an ex-Attorney General). It's just not that cut and dried. In this instance, we'll have to wait and see what Mrs May says.
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.
The evidence worldwide is that academic selection by merit opens up opportunities to the brightest from any background.
We accept such selection in the UK in music, dance, art and sport (particularly sport) but seem to baulk at it for academics.
I think that's a cultural objection, not an empirical one.
But the grammar school system (as we have in Bucks, etc.) seems to reduce social mobility, and lower grades across the board for the poorest. In other words, it does exactly the opposite of what it is claimed to do.
No it does not, look at comprehensive Knowsley or Nottingham or Portsmouth for example
Dude: the data is clear and unambiguous. Combining cognitive dissonance and argument from anecdote does not make you any more persuasive.
No it is fact selective Bucks and Trafford etc all have above average GCSE results, Oxbridge has a higher proportion of grammar school pupils per capita than comprehensive, plenty of comprehensive schools get abysmal results for pupils on free school meals
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.
The evidence worldwide is that academic selection by merit opens up opportunities to the brightest from any background.
We accept such selection in the UK in music, dance, art and sport (particularly sport) but seem to baulk at it for academics.
I think that's a cultural objection, not an empirical one.
But the grammar school system (as we have in Bucks, etc.) seems to reduce social mobility, and lower grades across the board for the poorest. In other words, it does exactly the opposite of what it is claimed to do.
No it does not, look at comprehensive Knowsley or Nottingham or Portsmouth for example
Dude: the data is clear and unambiguous. Combining cognitive dissonance and argument from anecdote does not make you any more persuasive.
No it is fact selective Bucks and Trafford etc all have above average GCSE results, Oxbridge has a higher proportion of grammar school pupils per capita than comprehensive, plenty of comprehensive schools get abysmal results for pupils on free school meals
Have you read the FT article or are you just spouting your prejudices?
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.
The evidence worldwide is that academic selection by merit opens up opportunities to the brightest from any background.
We accept such selection in the UK in music, dance, art and sport (particularly sport) but seem to baulk at it for academics.
I think that's a cultural objection, not an empirical one.
But the grammar school system (as we have in Bucks, etc.) seems to reduce social mobility, and lower grades across the board for the poorest. In other words, it does exactly the opposite of what it is claimed to do.
No it does not, look at comprehensive Knowsley or Nottingham or Portsmouth for example
The problem with Knowsley is not no grammars. It's that there are no good jobs and bad life chances in Knowsley, and no spare cash to create more opportunities for kids. (EDIT: Interestingly Knowsley despite its very significant deprivation and low racial minority % was practically bang-on the national average for REMAIN v LEAVE. Which makes you think it was not just a story of haves v have-nots.)
It has also been a test track for any stupid education fad which has come along. They are now at the point where the last school sixth form is about to close, leaving the area with no post 16 education.
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.
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.
The evidence worldwide is that academic selection by merit opens up opportunities to the brightest from any background.
We accept such selection in the UK in music, dance, art and sport (particularly sport) but seem to baulk at it for academics.
I think that's a cultural objection, not an empirical one.
But the grammar school system (as we have in Bucks, etc.) seems to reduce social mobility, and lower grades across the board for the poorest. In other words, it does exactly the opposite of what it is claimed to do.
No it does not, look at comprehensive Knowsley or Nottingham or Portsmouth for example
Dude: the data is clear and unambiguous. Combining cognitive dissonance and argument from anecdote does not make you any more persuasive.
The weakness of the data is that they are purely based on GCSE attainment and not any longer-term measure of 'success'.
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.
The evidence worldwide is that academic selection by merit opens up opportunities to the brightest from any background.
We accept such selection in the UK in music, dance, art and sport (particularly sport) but seem to baulk at it for academics.
I think that's a cultural objection, not an empirical one.
But the grammar school system (as we have in Bucks, etc.) seems to reduce social mobility, and lower grades across the board for the poorest. In other words, it does exactly the opposite of what it is claimed to do.
No it does not, look at comprehensive Knowsley or Nottingham or Portsmouth for example
The problem with Knowsley is not no grammars. It's that there are no good jobs and bad life chances in Knowsley, and no spare cash to create more opportunities for kids.
True but grammars gave opportunity to move out and get a higher paid job in a City and also a more educated population at the tob would create more professional opportunities and businesses in areas like Knowsley
It wasn't grammar schools that gave those opportunities. Every wealthy country, regardless of education system structure, experienced that growth in opportunity in the post-war era. Grammar schools were just the instrument of selection as to who was best placed to seize on the opportunity.
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.
The evidence worldwide is that academic selection by merit opens up opportunities to the brightest from any background.
We accept such selection in the UK in music, dance, art and sport (particularly sport) but seem to baulk at it for academics.
I think that's a cultural objection, not an empirical one.
But the grammar school system (as we have in Bucks, etc.) seems to reduce social mobility, and lower grades across the board for the poorest. In other words, it does exactly the opposite of what it is claimed to do.
No it does not, look at comprehensive Knowsley or Nottingham or Portsmouth for example
Dude: the data is clear and unambiguous. Combining cognitive dissonance and argument from anecdote does not make you any more persuasive.
The weakness of the data is that they are purely based on GCSE attainment and not any longer-term measure of 'success'.
What other objective (and universal) measure would you use?
Yes -- the Euro benefits Germany and harms the rest by locking in a competitive (or artificially low) exchange rate. Three cheers for Gordon Brown and his five tests!
Italy had the Euro between 1999 and 2007, when it was keeping up with the German trend. So something must have happened in 2007/8. Any major economic events around then?
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'.
40% would comfortably support allowing grammars to expand to meet demand even if not the complete abolition of comprehensive schools, 40% would produce a comfortable majority for May under FPTP. Backing grammars did Major no harm in 1992 when he won 41%
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.
The evidence worldwide is that academic selection by merit opens up opportunities to the brightest from any background.
We accept such selection in the UK in music, dance, art and sport (particularly sport) but seem to baulk at it for academics.
I think that's a cultural objection, not an empirical one.
But the grammar school system (as we have in Bucks, etc.) seems to reduce social mobility, and lower grades across the board for the poorest. In other words, it does exactly the opposite of what it is claimed to do.
No it does not, look at comprehensive Knowsley or Nottingham or Portsmouth for example
Dude: the data is clear and unambiguous. Combining cognitive dissonance and argument from anecdote does not make you any more persuasive.
The weakness of the data is that they are purely based on GCSE attainment and not any longer-term measure of 'success'.
What other objective (and universal) measure would you use?
Yes -- the Euro benefits Germany and harms the rest by locking in a competitive (or artificially low) exchange rate. Three cheers for Gordon Brown and his five tests!
Broadly, countries with flexible labour markets (Germany, the Netherlands, Ireland) have done well from Euro membership. Those with inflexible ones (Italy, France, Greece) have done badly.
Spain is the interesting one, because they've gone from inflexible to flexible, and are now the fastest growing large economy in Europe.
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.
The evidence worldwide is that academic selection by merit opens up opportunities to the brightest from any background.
We accept such selection in the UK in music, dance, art and sport (particularly sport) but seem to baulk at it for academics.
I think that's a cultural objection, not an empirical one.
But the grammar school system (as we have in Bucks, etc.) seems to reduce social mobility, and lower grades across the board for the poorest. In other words, it does exactly the opposite of what it is claimed to do.
No it does not, look at comprehensive Knowsley or Nottingham or Portsmouth for example
Dude: the data is clear and unambiguous. Combining cognitive dissonance and argument from anecdote does not make you any more persuasive.
The weakness of the data is that they are purely based on GCSE attainment and not any longer-term measure of 'success'.
What other objective (and universal) measure would you use?
Income percentile at age 30?
If that correlates well with GCSEs (and I bet it does, and that it is easily calculable), then why not simply use GCSEs, rather than waiting an additional 14 years to get results?
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.
The evidence worldwide is that academic selection by merit opens up opportunities to the brightest from any background.
We accept such selection in the UK in music, dance, art and sport (particularly sport) but seem to baulk at it for academics.
I think that's a cultural objection, not an empirical one.
But the grammar school system (as we have in Bucks, etc.) seems to reduce social mobility, and lower grades across the board for the poorest. In other words, it does exactly the opposite of what it is claimed to do.
No it does not, look at comprehensive Knowsley or Nottingham or Portsmouth for example
The problem with Knowsley is not no grammars. It's that there are no good jobs and bad life chances in Knowsley, and no spare cash to create more opportunities for kids.
True but grammars gave opportunity to move out and get a higher paid job in a City and also a more educated population at the tob would create more professional opportunities and businesses in areas like Knowsley
It wasn't grammar schools that gave those opportunities. Every wealthy country, regardless of education system structure, experienced that growth in opportunity in the post-war era. Grammar schools were just the instrument of selection as to who was best placed to seize on the opportunity.
Yet they allowed more state educated pupils to take the top professional jobs which are now dominated by the privately educated
I'm still surprised by my discovery, during the brief tangent on Knowsley, that its LEAVE share was almost exactly the national average. I had always thought that the Irish Catholic population would be more hostile to Ukip than others, but it surprised me that this carried over to REMAIN v LEAVE too, even though it is an extremely white working-class borough.
David Davis has promptly said they don't, it's Sturgeon's attempt to look powerful.
Or perhaps Davis trying to proive he si not an absolute donkey.
Or perhaps both? At the moment everyone is trying to look like they are in charge due to the instability we are going through.
It is called politics, Sturgeon is hardly likely to say " yes if theresa says jump I will just ask how high" and Davis is not going to admit that teh SNP have any power. There will be horse trading and on that will depend whether we have another referendum, UK does have to tread carefully whether they like it or not, I doubt they want to be left as rUK only.
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.
NI actually has some of the best GCSE results in the UK, some areas of Scotland like Glasgow amongst the worst
Scotland does GCSEs? That'll be news to the Scottish Qualifications Authority.
I was surprised when I saw the odds mentioned yesterday and England being favourites..... It didn't seem right to me at all. But surely the cricket betting experts know more than me?
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.
The evidence worldwide is that academic selection by merit opens up opportunities to the brightest from any background.
We accept such selection in the UK in music, dance, art and sport (particularly sport) but seem to baulk at it for academics.
I think that's a cultural objection, not an empirical one.
But the grammar school system (as we have in Bucks, etc.) seems to reduce social mobility, and lower grades across the board for the poorest. In other words, it does exactly the opposite of what it is claimed to do.
No it does not, look at comprehensive Knowsley or Nottingham or Portsmouth for example
Dude: the data is clear and unambiguous. Combining cognitive dissonance and argument from anecdote does not make you any more persuasive.
No it is fact selective Bucks and Trafford etc all have above average GCSE results, Oxbridge has a higher proportion of grammar school pupils per capita than comprehensive, plenty of comprehensive schools get abysmal results for pupils on free school meals
Have you read the FT article or are you just spouting your prejudices?
I have read it before and it is clearly focused solely on free school meals not even average GCSE attainment let alone top university entry, written most likely by a privately educated left liberal with an agenda
Italy had the Euro between 1999 and 2007, when it was keeping up with the German trend. So something must have happened in 2007/8. Any major economic events around then?
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.
The evidence worldwide is that academic selection by merit opens up opportunities to the brightest from any background.
We accept such selection in the UK in music, dance, art and sport (particularly sport) but seem to baulk at it for academics.
I think that's a cultural objection, not an empirical one.
But the grammar school system (as we have in Bucks, etc.) seems to reduce social mobility, and lower grades across the board for the poorest. In other words, it does exactly the opposite of what it is claimed to do.
No it does not, look at comprehensive Knowsley or Nottingham or Portsmouth for example
Dude: the data is clear and unambiguous. Combining cognitive dissonance and argument from anecdote does not make you any more persuasive.
No it is fact selective Bucks and Trafford etc all have above average GCSE results, Oxbridge has a higher proportion of grammar school pupils per capita than comprehensive, plenty of comprehensive schools get abysmal results for pupils on free school meals
Have you read the FT article or are you just spouting your prejudices?
I have rwad it before and it is clearly focused solely on free school meals not even average GCSE attainment let alone top university entry, written moat likely by a privately educated left liberal with an agenda
It looks at people's achievement depending on where they are on the deprivation scale, and free school meals is just one of the measures.
I think SeanT is wrong if he thinks this will be THE ONE that changes things. So far everything is following the usual depressing cycle.
After the Aurora shootings in 2012 and nothing happening as a result I pondered what might make the US change tack. I thought "God forbid but something like Dunblane". A few months later just such a thing happened at Newtown. 20 small children and half a dozen teachers being murdered and the result was that nothing changed. I almost can't conceive of events that would really change the US attitude to firearms.
Terrorism is even easier to avoid acting upon as it's very easy to point the finger at an external cause, rather than one within society, and simply throw up your hands in dismay. The problem, or at least impetus, is over there, outside of our reach, beyond our means.
I don't really expect anything to change unless there's another "9/11" or larger.
Italy had the Euro between 1999 and 2007, when it was keeping up with the German trend. So something must have happened in 2007/8. Any major economic events around then?
Germany should have been equally affected by a global event, no?
Yes -- the Euro benefits Germany and harms the rest by locking in a competitive (or artificially low) exchange rate. Three cheers for Gordon Brown and his five tests!
Broadly, countries with flexible labour markets (Germany, the Netherlands, Ireland) have done well from Euro membership. Those with inflexible ones (Italy, France, Greece) have done badly.
Spain is the interesting one, because they've gone from inflexible to flexible, and are now the fastest growing large economy in Europe.
Ireland and Spain both had, even with flexible labour markets, property development bubbles which burst, and from which their economies are now recovering.
David Davis has promptly said they don't, it's Sturgeon's attempt to look powerful.
Or perhaps Davis trying to proive he si not an absolute donkey.
Or perhaps both? At the moment everyone is trying to look like they are in charge due to the instability we are going through.
It is called politics, Sturgeon is hardly likely to say " yes if theresa says jump I will just ask how high" and Davis is not going to admit that teh SNP have any power. There will be horse trading and on that will depend whether we have another referendum, UK does have to tread carefully whether they like it or not, I doubt they want to be left as rUK only.
Well yes, hence my point about Sturgeon. She wants to appear to be the final arbiter of all things that affect Scotland when in fact she cannot be as she is subservient in a number of areas to Westminster. David D wants to appear in charge because he has been doing the job for a few days and hasn't really done anything yet. They probably don't want to lose Scotland, but neither can they afford to be seen to cow tow to Scottish interests over rUK interests because (as I learnt during the Scottish Inde vote) the SNP's way of doing things is not popular in England at all. It's not supposed to be of course but that has to be taken into consideration as one of these electorates is a lot bigger than the other.
I was surprised when I saw the odds mentioned yesterday and England being favourites..... It didn't seem right to me at all. But surely the cricket betting experts know more than me?
I am not very impressed by the cricviz model. Their percentages aren't right. Successfully Chasing ~300 in 4th innings at lords (or even in England in general) is a rare occurrence, but they had England as favourites for most of yesterday & 50/50 by the close.
Italy had the Euro between 1999 and 2007, when it was keeping up with the German trend. So something must have happened in 2007/8. Any major economic events around then?
Why did same not apply to Germany?
Much less indebted. A more intrinsically sustainable economy based on high-end sectors rather than competing with expanding Asian economies in low-end sectors. More flexibility in labour law to allow employers to curtail hours rather than having to end employment contracts outright (not that that's much fun for the workers either, but it keeps them from dropping out entirely).
David Davis has promptly said they don't, it's Sturgeon's attempt to look powerful.
Or perhaps Davis trying to proive he si not an absolute donkey.
Or perhaps both? At the moment everyone is trying to look like they are in charge due to the instability we are going through.
It is called politics, Sturgeon is hardly likely to say " yes if theresa says jump I will just ask how high" and Davis is not going to admit that teh SNP have any power. There will be horse trading and on that will depend whether we have another referendum, UK does have to tread carefully whether they like it or not, I doubt they want to be left as rUK only.
It's one of those fake media rows. May has to show she's consulted all the 'stakeholders'. Everyone has input. Those inputs can be sifted, prioritised or discarded and those that remain will form the basis of our negotiating position. It's all incredibly dull and ritualistic as a minuet.
No as some of those candidates on the Oxbridge borderline would have made it from the grammar but not the comprehensive
No, this is my hypothetical scenario, there's absolutely zero difference in the Grammar and the Comprehensive ability to get pupils to Oxbridge, it is entirely down to the pupils. Yet the 'stats' say the Grammar is vastly better when it is not.
My example was about the dangers of blindly accepting statistics without understanding context. I have specifically constructed my hypothetical so there is no difference yet it looks like the Grammar is significantly better than the Comprehensives.
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.
The evidence worldwide is that academic selection by merit opens up opportunities to the brightest from any background.
We accept such selection in the UK in music, dance, art and sport (particularly sport) but seem to baulk at it for academics.
I think that's a cultural objection, not an empirical one.
But the grammar school system (as we have in Bucks, etc.) seems to reduce social mobility, and lower grades across the board for the poorest. In other words, it does exactly the opposite of what it is claimed to do.
No it does not, look at comprehensive Knowsley or Nottingham or Portsmouth for example
Dude: the data is clear and unambiguous. Combining cognitive dissonance and argument from anecdote does not make you any more persuasive.
No it is fact selective Bucks and Trafford etc all have above average GCSE results, Oxbridge has a higher proportion of grammar school pupils per capita than comprehensive, plenty of comprehensive schools get abysmal results for pupils on free school meals
Have you read the FT article or are you just spouting your prejudices?
I have rwad it before and it is clearly focused solely on free school meals not even average GCSE attainment let alone top university entry, written moat likely by a privately educated left liberal with an agenda
It looks at people's achievement depending on where they are on the deprivation scale, and free school meals is just one of the measures.
I'll email it to you. It made me change my mind.
I have said I have read it before as you say it focuses entirely on those on the deprivation scale and completely ignores selective areas with above average GCSE results or top university entry. It also forgets many comprehensive areas also get terrible results for the most deprived. It did not change my mind at all
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.
NI actually has some of the best GCSE results in the UK, some areas of Scotland like Glasgow amongst the worst
Scotland does GCSEs? That'll be news to the Scottish Qualifications Authority.
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.
The trouble with large scale experiments in education is that precisely zero parents want to be involuntarily co-oped into them.
David Davis has promptly said they don't, it's Sturgeon's attempt to look powerful.
Or perhaps Davis trying to proive he si not an absolute donkey.
Or perhaps both? At the moment everyone is trying to look like they are in charge due to the instability we are going through.
It is called politics, Sturgeon is hardly likely to say " yes if theresa says jump I will just ask how high" and Davis is not going to admit that teh SNP have any power. There will be horse trading and on that will depend whether we have another referendum, UK does have to tread carefully whether they like it or not, I doubt they want to be left as rUK only.
It's one of those fake media rows. May has to show she's consulted all the 'stakeholders'. Everyone has input. Those inputs can be sifted, prioritised or discarded and those that remain will form the basis of our negotiating position. It's all incredibly dull and ritualistic as a minuet.
When BREXIT comes it will most likely be EFTA plus offered for Scotland
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.
NI actually has some of the best GCSE results in the UK, some areas of Scotland like Glasgow amongst the worst
Scotland does GCSEs? That'll be news to the Scottish Qualifications Authority.
Standard Grade then or whatever they do now
I'd have thought a well educated person would have made that differentiation even when making a spurious point.
You can be brilliant at Maths and useless at English. You can be brilliant at languages but hopeless at geography. Brilliant at art and rubbish at history. Permutate ad infinitum. The 11+ is a very crude measure of prediction for academic ability, and is likely not great at picking out true excellence.
It's actually not bad at predicting future performance - indeed excellence in sport and the arts also seems to follow from good IQ scores. The correlation is there.
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.
I've only experienced it first hand at my school - with a population of 1,250 or so it worked ok (although it was not particularly resource constrained).
Floating teachers I'm only thinking about for minor subjects - I believe we had floating teachers for Russian and Mandarin, for instance, but more mainstream subjects like Latin and Greek had full time employees.
But yes, ultimately, a lot flows from empowering teachers with appropriate authority and trusting them to get on with the job. I would remove the right of parents to appeal decisions!
Lol - love your last sentence - I was responsible for admissions and appeals in my grammar school for a number of years. The latter was probably a key factor in my decision to retire early!!
The Labour Party in fighting an election is like an elephant attacking a host of ants. The elephant will kill thousands, perhaps even millions, of voters, but in the end their numbers will overcome him, and he will be eaten to the bone.
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.
NI actually has some of the best GCSE results in the UK, some areas of Scotland like Glasgow amongst the worst
Scotland does GCSEs? That'll be news to the Scottish Qualifications Authority.
Standard Grade then or whatever they do now
I'd have thought a well educated person would have made that differentiation even when making a spurious point.
The original spurious point was NI had bad exam results which was wrong
I'm advised that Andrea of this parish will likely not be posting today on account of him being on the lash overnight following the news that his hero, Sir Hunky Dinky Dunky, has been made MoS at the Foreign Office.
Clearly the appointment is an example of the reach of the Grand Duchy of Rutland in their long term project for world domination.
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.
Mark Lancaster has the MOD Under Sec job - no more detail than that so far.
He's tweeted that he's staying in post. I'd always heard he was quietly doing a good job there - interested to hear if posters have different experiences.
David Davis has promptly said they don't, it's Sturgeon's attempt to look powerful.
Or perhaps Davis trying to proive he si not an absolute donkey.
Or perhaps both? At the moment everyone is trying to look like they are in charge due to the instability we are going through.
It is called politics, Sturgeon is hardly likely to say " yes if theresa says jump I will just ask how high" and Davis is not going to admit that teh SNP have any power. There will be horse trading and on that will depend whether we have another referendum, UK does have to tread carefully whether they like it or not, I doubt they want to be left as rUK only.
Well yes, hence my point about Sturgeon. She wants to appear to be the final arbiter of all things that affect Scotland when in fact she cannot be as she is subservient in a number of areas to Westminster. David D wants to appear in charge because he has been doing the job for a few days and hasn't really done anything yet. They probably don't want to lose Scotland, but neither can they afford to be seen to cow tow to Scottish interests over rUK interests because (as I learnt during the Scottish Inde vote) the SNP's way of doing things is not popular in England at all. It's not supposed to be of course but that has to be taken into consideration as one of these electorates is a lot bigger than the other.
Absolutely and hence why at some point we will vote again and leave. Even the cowardy custards will get fed up being told what they are going to do at some point.
David Davis has promptly said they don't, it's Sturgeon's attempt to look powerful.
Or perhaps Davis trying to proive he si not an absolute donkey.
Or perhaps both? At the moment everyone is trying to look like they are in charge due to the instability we are going through.
It is called politics, Sturgeon is hardly likely to say " yes if theresa says jump I will just ask how high" and Davis is not going to admit that teh SNP have any power. There will be horse trading and on that will depend whether we have another referendum, UK does have to tread carefully whether they like it or not, I doubt they want to be left as rUK only.
If sturgeon has any sense she will insist on EFTA/EEA to retain single market access and maximum devolution of repatriated powers such as fisheries and agriculture.
No as some of those candidates on the Oxbridge borderline would have made it from the grammar but not the comprehensive
No, this is my hypothetical scenario, there's absolutely zero difference in the Grammar and the Comprehensive ability to get pupils to Oxbridge, it is entirely down to the pupils. Yet the 'stats' say the Grammar is vastly better when it is not.
My example was about the dangers of blindly accepting statistics without understanding context. I have specifically constructed my hypothetical so there is no difference yet it looks like the Grammar is significantly better than the Comprehensives.
No as grammars have about 5% of pupils and 15 to 20% of Oxbridge entrants and comps about 90% of pupils and 25 to 30% of Oxbridge entrants
No as some of those candidates on the Oxbridge borderline would have made it from the grammar but not the comprehensive
No, this is my hypothetical scenario, there's absolutely zero difference in the Grammar and the Comprehensive ability to get pupils to Oxbridge, it is entirely down to the pupils. Yet the 'stats' say the Grammar is vastly better when it is not.
My example was about the dangers of blindly accepting statistics without understanding context. I have specifically constructed my hypothetical so there is no difference yet it looks like the Grammar is significantly better than the Comprehensives.
Well I'll tell you what, I went to a grammar school from 11-16 and got pushed as hard as possible, then did my a-levels at a sixth form college. The difference in intervention from the schools was stark. At QE everything was predicated around getting into Oxford, at college it was just about getting into any university. At school there were teachers and tutors who would specifically help with applications to Oxford, almost everyone was expected to apply.
The attitude was what made such a huge difference IMO. The ability of students wasn't too different IMO, but the expectations difference was vast. Around half of my friends stayed at school for sixth form and half of us went to the college (mostly because we wanted out of the all boys school!) the half that stayed at school all applied for Oxford and around half were successful in receiving offers, only two of us who went to college applied and neither were successful despite us all getting the same grades (four A's) and similar GSCE grades.
To sum it up, teachers at grammar schools expect the best from students, I didn't find the same at the sixth form college which was only slightly selective.
David Davis has promptly said they don't, it's Sturgeon's attempt to look powerful.
Or perhaps Davis trying to proive he si not an absolute donkey.
Or perhaps both? At the moment everyone is trying to look like they are in charge due to the instability we are going through.
It is called politics, Sturgeon is hardly likely to say " yes if theresa says jump I will just ask how high" and Davis is not going to admit that teh SNP have any power. There will be horse trading and on that will depend whether we have another referendum, UK does have to tread carefully whether they like it or not, I doubt they want to be left as rUK only.
It's one of those fake media rows. May has to show she's consulted all the 'stakeholders'. Everyone has input. Those inputs can be sifted, prioritised or discarded and those that remain will form the basis of our negotiating position. It's all incredibly dull and ritualistic as a minuet.
Yes and we all know that Westminster will not take any account of Scotland's wants or wishes, it will be a narrow Westminster Tory viewpoint and dictact. Which will go down like a cup of sick.
Comments
But surely we need to try different things than the Grammar system. I'd like to see some implementation of a MAGNET/Gymnasium hybrid system (no academic MAGNETS but focused on Technical/Vocational and smaller numbers of Sports, Arts and Music).
We accept such selection in the UK in music, dance, art and sport (particularly sport) but seem to baulk at it for academics.
I think that's a cultural objection, not an empirical one.
Rory gets a job too. I remain ambivalent about him myself.
In the Times Top 200 Universities, there are 34 UK Universities. 5 are Scottish.
The Scottish performance is more closely comparable to a reasonably successful English region than to the whole country. Given the populations, that is hardly surprising.
Oxord
Cambridge
Imperial
UCL
LSE
Edinburgh
KCL
Manchester
Bristol
Durham
Glasgow
Warwick
St Andrews
Exeter
Sheffield
Queen Mary, London
Southampton
Birmingham
Royal Holloway, London
Lancaster
York
Leeds
Sussex
Nottingham
East Anglia
Liverpool
Reading
Leicester
Aberdeen
Cardiff
Dundee
Newcastle
St Georges, London
Queens, Belfast
https://www.timeshighereducation.com/student/best-universities-in-the-united-kingdom
Sir Benjamin, could be wrong, but for some weird reason I think the incumbent still has the job. May've glanced at it on Twitter.
That option has been closed down to quite a few kids since.
Conversely, there's quite a bit of evidence to say social mobility has gone backwards in the last 20-30 years, and it's abundantly clear there is a wholesale dominance of the professions by the privately educated. And we'd had things like nod-nod, wink-wink unpaid internships to reinforce it.
For example MAGNET does not always make academic selection (some districts do but not all). Mainly its Technical, Arts, music. Gymnasium is effectively selection for Technical.
As far as I can see, academic focus should be the base level with the selection made for non-academic focus.
Over 6,000 people arrested. Those aren't handcuffs they're wearing. They're freedom bracelets.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-36818401
The problem with educational policy in England is that the 'best' of other educational systems is desired, without the planning and investment that those countries have put in to achieve high quality outcomes/destinations.
The recent conversion to Chinese mathematics teaching methodologies, and the attempt to implement Core Maths post 16 are prime examples. No proper planning, no realistic attempt to increase teacher supply - Nick Gibb explicitly said that the main features which make the Chinese system so successful (teaching lesson planning time and collaborative curriculum planning) can't happen as we have insufficient resources.
Surely that is an acceptable way forward? And of course these selective academies would not necessarily call themselves grammar schools either.
However, academic selection should not be taboo. I'm open to both setting in big schools, but, also, smaller academic elite schools.
Oh and Pakistan = 10% of the way there.
https://twitter.com/IsabelOakeshott/status/754625815527194624
If there's a Commons vote and we don't leave the EU, the electoral implications are enormous.
(As I'm hoping my daughter makes it to the local grammar, it would be deeply hypocritical of me to do so.)
Anyway, as is traditional when struggling to start something I'm going to leave the computer and use ye olde pen and paper. And possibly also read more of Dodge's second volume of his Napoleonic biography.
Pakistan should be big favourites now.
If Merkel is happy for Theresa to do it via a quick phone call ("It's not you Angela, it's me"), then the clock starts ticking.
Even Michael Gove, who certainly wanted to improve schools, fell into this trap. Despite not being an historian, he wanted to dictate the history curriculum, as well as English iirc. Similarly, there was no evidence for free schools, or for Labour's academies.
Maths teaching like this started in Russia, where they did what we never do and asked two sets of experts. They asked the mathematicians what should be taught, and asked the psychologists how to teach it.
Floating teachers I'm only thinking about for minor subjects - I believe we had floating teachers for Russian and Mandarin, for instance, but more mainstream subjects like Latin and Greek had full time employees.
But yes, ultimately, a lot flows from empowering teachers with appropriate authority and trusting them to get on with the job. I would remove the right of parents to appeal decisions!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/video_and_audio/headlines/36819048
I think SeanT is wrong if he thinks this will be THE ONE that changes things. So far everything is following the usual depressing cycle.
https://twitter.com/Schuldensuehner/status/754631556044554240
There's never a single cause.
'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'.
40% would comfortably support allowing grammars to expand to meet demand even if not the complete abolition of comprehensive schools, 40% would produce a comfortable majority for May under FPTP. Backing grammars did Major no harm in 1992 when he won 41%
Spain is the interesting one, because they've gone from inflexible to flexible, and are now the fastest growing large economy in Europe.
There will be horse trading and on that will depend whether we have another referendum, UK does have to tread carefully whether they like it or not, I doubt they want to be left as rUK only.
Part of it was videoed:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyKRNyFTdr4
I'll email it to you. It made me change my mind.
Terrorism is even easier to avoid acting upon as it's very easy to point the finger at an external cause, rather than one within society, and simply throw up your hands in dismay. The problem, or at least impetus, is over there, outside of our reach, beyond our means.
I don't really expect anything to change unless there's another "9/11" or larger.
They probably don't want to lose Scotland, but neither can they afford to be seen to cow tow to Scottish interests over rUK interests because (as I learnt during the Scottish Inde vote) the SNP's way of doing things is not popular in England at all. It's not supposed to be of course but that has to be taken into consideration as one of these electorates is a lot bigger than the other.
My example was about the dangers of blindly accepting statistics without understanding context. I have specifically constructed my hypothetical so there is no difference yet it looks like the Grammar is significantly better than the Comprehensives.
--Colonel Bernd Von Kleist
Clearly the appointment is an example of the reach of the Grand Duchy of Rutland in their long term project for world domination.
The attitude was what made such a huge difference IMO. The ability of students wasn't too different IMO, but the expectations difference was vast. Around half of my friends stayed at school for sixth form and half of us went to the college (mostly because we wanted out of the all boys school!) the half that stayed at school all applied for Oxford and around half were successful in receiving offers, only two of us who went to college applied and neither were successful despite us all getting the same grades (four A's) and similar GSCE grades.
To sum it up, teachers at grammar schools expect the best from students, I didn't find the same at the sixth form college which was only slightly selective.