Whatever view you take on grammar schools, and I can see arguments on both sides, this is a really bizarre distraction when the government has so much on its hands. In my opinion raising this now shows poor judgment and they have lost control of the story.
In dealing with Brexit and creating a new economic policy Mrs May has as busy an agenda as any PM in recent times to deal with. She needs to focus and make progress on the stuff that is central to the national interest.
It's part of Brexit. May needs to keep the Tory right onside for the tough days ahead.
She needs to keep the whole party together for the tough days ahead and this is not the way to do it. The Cameroons do not agree with this and will, if pushed, say so.
She has chosen to appoint a muppet her Secretary of State for Brexit. This presumably means that she intends to do that job herself. So she should get on with it.
The Cameroons challenging May on grammars would fin themselves as isolated as the Blairites trying to take on Corbyn, the Tory membership and most Tory backbenchers are staunchly pro grammars
So what? Government majority of 12.
Only until the next election? Then it could be Tory majority of 112!
Well there will be time to mess about with upper middle class right wing prejudices such as grammars then. Probably won't have Cameron to worry about either. Right now this is silly.
What we really need are anti-grammars, for the disruptive. A more difficult sell to the electorate, perhaps...
Attending a middling to failing comprehensive school does tend to give you a different perspective on these matters. These are places in which half the pupils are bouncing off the walls in frustration when they should be doing something more useful than being trapped in the bottom stream for languages. The hardworking, bright or just non-violent need to keep their heads down to avoid the attention of the hardcases and their accomplices (who are often perfectly fine individually but who had to choose a side and chose the nutters). This goes on for the first four years or so, alleviated by streaming, but not eliminated because a school is as much about what happens in the school corridor and at the gate as it is about the classroom. Then comes the change, when the disruptive start to leave and the non-disruptive emerge, blinking in the sunlight tentatively at first wanting to be sure the hardcases are gone and it is ok to have a normal conversation. The atmosphere changes. By the 5th and 6th form it is a different school. Academic achievement is not a matter of shame.
All these conspiracy theories about Theresa May are amusing but I think it's much more simple.
She really does genuinely believe that bringing back grammar schools is the answer to improving educational standards.
The woman has been "on the scene" for like 20 years but hardly anyone know's anything about her. It's perfectly possible she'll turn out to be one of the radical PM's we've had in decades.
It's the same with Brexit. People think she put the three Brexiteers in place so that they'd self-immolate and allow her to go for Soft Brexit, but what if she put them in place because she wants a hard Brexit?
That's what the signs are pointing towards to me...
If she is intending to govern as a radical PM she'll need a bigger majority though. Election Spring 2017 after the Commons defeats her on Grammars?
Whatever view you take on grammar schools, and I can see arguments on both sides, this is a really bizarre distraction when the government has so much on its hands. In my opinion raising this now shows poor judgment and they have lost control of the story.
In dealing with Brexit and creating a new economic policy Mrs May has as busy an agenda as any PM in recent times to deal with. She needs to focus and make progress on the stuff that is central to the national interest.
It's part of Brexit. May needs to keep the Tory right onside for the tough days ahead.
She needs to keep the whole party together for the tough days ahead and this is not the way to do it. The Cameroons do not agree with this and will, if pushed, say so.
She has chosen to appoint a muppet her Secretary of State for Brexit. This presumably means that she intends to do that job herself. So she should get on with it.
The Cameroons challenging May on grammars would fin themselves as isolated as the Blairites trying to take on Corbyn, the Tory membership and most Tory backbenchers are staunchly pro grammars
So what? Government majority of 12.
Only until the next election? Then it could be Tory majority of 112!
Well there will be time to mess about with upper middle class right wing prejudices such as grammars then. Probably won't have Cameron to worry about either. Right now this is silly.
What we really need are anti-grammars, for the disruptive. A more difficult sell to the electorate, perhaps...
Attending a middling to failing comprehensive school does tend to give you a different perspective on these matters. These are places in which half the pupils are bouncing off the walls in frustration when they should be doing something more useful than being trapped in the bottom stream for languages. The hardworking, bright or just non-violent need to keep their heads down to avoid the attention of the hardcases and their accomplices (who are often perfectly fine individually but who had to choose a side and chose the nutters). This goes on for the first four years or so, alleviated by streaming, but not eliminated because a school is as much about what happens in the school corridor and at the gate as it is about the classroom. Then comes the change, when the disruptive start to leave and the non-disruptive emerge, blinking in the sunlight tentatively at first wanting to be sure the hardcases are gone and it is ok to have a normal conversation. The atmosphere changes. By the 5th and 6th form it is a different school. Academic achievement is not a matter of shame.
The [not so] funny thing is that the same effect, in miniature, was actually present in my grammar. Doubtless our nutters were fewer in number and considerably less nutty, but in the first few years there was still an element of learning not being cool.
We don't elect Prime Ministers in this country. We elect constituency Members of Parliament. There's no such thing as a PM having a mandate separate from that which the party with a working majority of MPs wins. Theresa May has as much of a mandate as any other British Prime Minister.
Of course, whether you believe the new-fangled rights of Conservative party members should have a say in who is their leader is a different matter but one that, anyway, never existed before Cameron. As Labour are discovering, giving members a say is not quite the utopia they imagined.
George Eaton May making big pitch for lower middle class: "the hidden disadvantaged".
Sensible labour must be very worried at seeing a conservative Ptime Minister unashamedly marching onto their territory. It will be interesting to see other announcements coming this Autumn that will make labour an irrelevance. The Autumn statement will no doubt be targeted at 'the hidden disadvantaged' as well.
What we really need are anti-grammars, for the disruptive. A more difficult sell to the electorate, perhaps...
Attending a middling to failing comprehensive school does tend to give you a different perspective on these matters. These are places in which half the pupils are bouncing off the walls in frustration when they should be doing something more useful than being trapped in the bottom stream for languages. The hardworking, bright or just non-violent need to keep their heads down to avoid the attention of the hardcases and their accomplices (who are often perfectly fine individually but who had to choose a side and chose the nutters). This goes on for the first four years or so, alleviated by streaming, but not eliminated because a school is as much about what happens in the school corridor and at the gate as it is about the classroom. Then comes the change, when the disruptive start to leave and the non-disruptive emerge, blinking in the sunlight tentatively at first wanting to be sure the hardcases are gone and it is ok to have a normal conversation. The atmosphere changes. By the 5th and 6th form it is a different school. Academic achievement is not a matter of shame.
The [not so] funny thing is that the same effect, in miniature, was actually present in my grammar. Doubtless our nutters were fewer in number and considerably less nutty, but in the first few years there was still an element of learning not being cool.
Having attended schools where the only way to get any attention at all was to throw a chair or dribble on it you can understand my total lack of sympathy. I, personally, ended up choosing a 2 hour daily commute to the first half reasonable school outside my LEA that would let me in.
It's the same with Brexit. People think she put the three Brexiteers in place so that they'd self-immolate and allow her to go for Soft Brexit, but what if she put them in place because she wants a hard Brexit?
That's what the signs are pointing towards to me...
Everyone seeing what they want to be seeing, this is politics for "winning".
@PaulWaugh: Right from the get-go, May says she wants to put "ordinary working class people first" Ie not just the poorest kids. Signif.
Sound of tanks being parked all over Labour's lawn......
Also not sure how the Osbornites challenge this de haut en bas.....
She is merely saying what all Tory leaders say. It's the delivery that counts - or which would count in normal circumstances.
I doubt Cameron or Osborne could deliver this speech.....Major & Thatcher, yes, but not our most recent Head Boys......
Yup.
It's about nuance of tone - she's saying things that would be hard to understand by reading a report - it requires a bit of Been There Done That to sound authentic.
What we really need are anti-grammars, for the disruptive. A more difficult sell to the electorate, perhaps...
Attending a middling to failing comprehensive school does tend to give you a different perspective on these matters. These are places in which half the pupils are bouncing off the walls in frustration when they should be doing something more useful than being trapped in the bottom stream for languages. The hardworking, bright or just non-violent need to keep their heads down to avoid the attention of the hardcases and their accomplices (who are often perfectly fine individually but who had to choose a side and chose the nutters). This goes on for the first four years or so, alleviated by streaming, but not eliminated because a school is as much about what happens in the school corridor and at the gate as it is about the classroom. Then comes the change, when the disruptive start to leave and the non-disruptive emerge, blinking in the sunlight tentatively at first wanting to be sure the hardcases are gone and it is ok to have a normal conversation. The atmosphere changes. By the 5th and 6th form it is a different school. Academic achievement is not a matter of shame.
The [not so] funny thing is that the same effect, in miniature, was actually present in my grammar. Doubtless our nutters were fewer in number and considerably less nutty, but in the first few years there was still an element of learning not being cool.
Having attended schools where the only way to get any attention at all was to throw a chair or dribble on it you can understand my total lack of sympathy. I, personally, ended up choosing a 2 hour daily commute to the first half reasonable school outside my LEA that would let me in.
Oh yes, no sympathy is warranted or expected. I went to a fantastic school. It was more an observation that the same dynamics apply everywhere if the teachers aren't on top of everything - notably the observation that "school is as much about what happens in the school corridor and at the gate as it is about the classroom".
What we really need are anti-grammars, for the disruptive. A more difficult sell to the electorate, perhaps...
Attending a middling to failing comprehensive school does tend to give you a different perspective on these matters. These are places in which half the pupils are bouncing off the walls in frustration when they should be doing something more useful than being trapped in the bottom stream for languages. The hardworking, bright or just non-violent need to keep their heads down to avoid the attention of the hardcases and their accomplices (who are often perfectly fine individually but who had to choose a side and chose the nutters). This goes on for the first four years or so, alleviated by streaming, but not eliminated because a school is as much about what happens in the school corridor and at the gate as it is about the classroom. Then comes the change, when the disruptive start to leave and the non-disruptive emerge, blinking in the sunlight tentatively at first wanting to be sure the hardcases are gone and it is ok to have a normal conversation. The atmosphere changes. By the 5th and 6th form it is a different school. Academic achievement is not a matter of shame.
The young son of an old colleague of mine suffered a significant physical injury a few months ago, and he is still suffering from the effects of the attack. It happened outside school (just), but the school did fairly well in reprimanding the bully and trying to keep him away.
The son's been beaten up again over the summer, and I believe the police are still involved.
They're both off to a new school (I think they started last week), and the new school has said there was nothing they could do as the bully had done nothing in that school. As far as they're concerned it's a clean slate. Meanwhile the young lad is not only suffering occasional physical pain from the injury, but is in fear of what happens at the school.
Apart from Labour MPs there is another significant group that will not welcome Mrs May's changes to education. The 48% of Conservative MPs that were privately educated. She intends to meddle into the charity status of such schools and if more grammar schools are created they will attract away some of the brightest from the public schools. Hit with more demands from Govt, fewer pupils and fewer brighter pupils, the supporters of public schools are likely to fight Mrs May harder and more effectively than Labour.
This is a fight that she has foolishly stepped into.
Local Authority councillors are generally of poor quality. As we've seen elsewhere a directly elected Mayor for the NE would attract national calibre candidates. Councillors hate the idea. It's the North East's loss. As for replacement funding for lost EU grants why should Westminster ? The correlations between high EU grants, having voted heavily for Brexit and not electing Conservative MP's while not exact is very strong. These areas deserve to be shafted at the expense of deficit reduction and protecting our research universities. I hope they do get shafted.
I don't favour punishing districts that vote Labour.
The actual issue up north is council tax. The criteria used was set on a national level so being up north I have a house in Band C that would be Band F as a minimum down south.
The difference was then made up by a central government grant that paid more to councils up north (who recovered less in council tax revenue due to its design). Guess what Osbourne cut without thinking and refused to listen to when it was pointed out....
George Eaton May making big pitch for lower middle class: "the hidden disadvantaged".
Sensible labour must be very worried at seeing a conservative Ptime Minister unashamedly marching onto their territory. It will be interesting to see other announcements coming this Autumn that will make labour an irrelevance. The Autumn statement will no doubt be targeted at 'the hidden disadvantaged' as well.
She is saying what every Tory PM says - that the Tories will govern for everyone. It's significant that Tory leaders still feel they need to make such speeches. The proof of the pudding, of course, is in the eating.
Lower down that link, Wilshaw is quoted as saying ""Most of those academies, all of them as far as I'm aware - and free schools - are all-ability schools..."
What we really need are anti-grammars, for the disruptive. A more difficult sell to the electorate, perhaps...
Attending a middling to failing comprehensive school does tend to give you a different perspective on these matters. These are places in which half the pupils are bouncing off the walls in frustration when they should be doing something more useful than being trapped in the bottom stream for languages. The hardworking, bright or just non-violent need to keep their heads down to avoid the attention of the hardcases and their accomplices (who are often perfectly fine individually but who had to choose a side and chose the nutters). This goes on for the first four years or so, alleviated by streaming, but not eliminated because a school is as much about what happens in the school corridor and at the gate as it is about the classroom. Then comes the change, when the disruptive start to leave and the non-disruptive emerge, blinking in the sunlight tentatively at first wanting to be sure the hardcases are gone and it is ok to have a normal conversation. The atmosphere changes. By the 5th and 6th form it is a different school. Academic achievement is not a matter of shame.
The [not so] funny thing is that the same effect, in miniature, was actually present in my grammar. Doubtless our nutters were fewer in number and considerably less nutty, but in the first few years there was still an element of learning not being cool.
Having attended schools where the only way to get any attention at all was to throw a chair or dribble on it you can understand my total lack of sympathy. I, personally, ended up choosing a 2 hour daily commute to the first half reasonable school outside my LEA that would let me in.
Oh yes, no sympathy is warranted or expected. I went to a fantastic school. It was more an observation that the same dynamics apply everywhere if the teachers aren't on top of everything - notably the observation that "school is as much about what happens in the school corridor and at the gate as it is about the classroom".
How did you get on in your eventual school?
Not having to watch my own back constantly allowed me to play catch up for half a decade and I eventually did reasonably well. It's a shame it had to cost me 10 hours a week commuting and my parents the equivalent of a mortgage payment or two a year in bus fares.
It's early days yet but May is the first major politician in a long time that even seems to pretend to care about the C1s and C2s.
What we really need are anti-grammars, for the disruptive. A more difficult sell to the electorate, perhaps...
Attending a middling to failing comprehensive school does tend to give you a different perspective on these matters. These are places in which half the pupils are bouncing off the walls in frustration when they should be doing something more useful than being trapped in the bottom stream for languages. The hardworking, bright or just non-violent need to keep their heads down to avoid the attention of the hardcases and their accomplices (who are often perfectly fine individually but who had to choose a side and chose the nutters). This goes on for the first four years or so, alleviated by streaming, but not eliminated because a school is as much about what happens in the school corridor and at the gate as it is about the classroom. Then comes the change, when the disruptive start to leave and the non-disruptive emerge, blinking in the sunlight tentatively at first wanting to be sure the hardcases are gone and it is ok to have a normal conversation. The atmosphere changes. By the 5th and 6th form it is a different school. Academic achievement is not a matter of shame.
The young son of an old colleague of mine suffered a significant physical injury a few months ago, and he is still suffering from the effects of the attack. It happened outside school (just), but the school did fairly well in reprimanding the bully and trying to keep him away.
The son's been beaten up again over the summer, and I believe the police are still involved.
They're both off to a new school (I think they started last week), and the new school has said there was nothing they could do as the bully had done nothing in that school. As far as they're concerned it's a clean slate. Meanwhile the young lad is not only suffering occasional physical pain from the injury, but is in fear of what happens at the school.
Not a pleasant situation.
That is a horrible situation. One of the reasons that the our local comprehensive is so popular is its zero-tolerance attitude to bullying. When I was looking at schools for my lad, the headmaster there talked about his own bad experiences of bullying as a child and promised that bullying of any kind would be treated very seriously. This is what all schools, of whatever type, should be like.
TSE says:"...obtaining her own mandate at a general election might help her avoid the fate of her predecessors."
That seems reasonable to me, but it must be tempting for May to stay her hand on calling an election to let Labour stew in its own juices. I hope she calls an election soon, but I doubt she will.
Paul Waugh Another key announcement: new grammars will allow kids to move from non selectives at 14 and 16 not just 11. Or lessons in specific subjects
Apart from Labour MPs there is another significant group that will not welcome Mrs May's changes to education. The 48% of Conservative MPs that were privately educated. She intends to meddle into the charity status of such schools and if more grammar schools are created they will attract away some of the brightest from the public schools. Hit with more demands from Govt, fewer pupils and fewer brighter pupils, the supporters of public schools are likely to fight Mrs May harder and more effectively than Labour.
This is a fight that she has foolishly stepped into.
The private school stuff is interesting. It would give a decent Labour opposition a lot of leeway to go further.
Just a heads up, it is very possible the afternoon thread will be written entirely in Latin.
Whoa there, some of us barely remember that stuff from a quarter of a century ago! Amo, amas, amat...
Half a century ago for some of us and yes, at Grammar School
I found learning Spanish in my late 50s much easier due to the similarities in noun declension and conjugation of verbs with the Latin I studied in the early 1970s - amo, amas ama, amamis amais, aman [ near identical to the Latin!
What we really need are anti-grammars, for the disruptive. A more difficult sell to the electorate, perhaps...
Attending a middling to failing comprehensive school does tend to give you a different perspective on these matters. These are places in which half the pupils are bouncing off the walls in frustration when they should be doing something more useful than being trapped in the bottom stream for languages. The hardworking, bright or just non-violent need to keep their heads down to avoid the attention of the hardcases and their accomplices (who are often perfectly fine individually but who had to choose a side and chose the nutters). This goes on for the first four years or so, alleviated by streaming, but not eliminated because a school is as much about what happens in the school corridor and at the gate as it is about the classroom. Then comes the change, when the disruptive start to leave and the non-disruptive emerge, blinking in the sunlight tentatively at first wanting to be sure the hardcases are gone and it is ok to have a normal conversation. The atmosphere changes. By the 5th and 6th form it is a different school. Academic achievement is not a matter of shame.
The young son of an old colleague of mine suffered a significant physical injury a few months ago, and he is still suffering from the effects of the attack. It happened outside school (just), but the school did fairly well in reprimanding the bully and trying to keep him away.
The son's been beaten up again over the summer, and I believe the police are still involved.
They're both off to a new school (I think they started last week), and the new school has said there was nothing they could do as the bully had done nothing in that school. As far as they're concerned it's a clean slate. Meanwhile the young lad is not only suffering occasional physical pain from the injury, but is in fear of what happens at the school.
Not a pleasant situation.
Strict discipline in the modern age of Britain is hard to enforce. If Heads throw out difficult pupils then they get back in on appeal.
It is the same with the perennial cries of "bring back Matron" in the NHS. That sort of disciplinarian approach would see people sacked, possibly with large awards re bullying etc.
Modern matrons are a useless bunch, as Nurse Anne put it so well:
What we really need are anti-grammars, for the disruptive. A more difficult sell to the electorate, perhaps...
Attending a middling to failing comprehensive school does tend to give you a different perspective on these matters. These are places in which half the pupils are bouncing off the walls in frustration when they should be doing something more useful than being trapped in the bottom stream for languages. The hardworking, bright or just non-violent need to keep their heads down to avoid the attention of the hardcases and their accomplices (who are often perfectly fine individually but who had to choose a side and chose the nutters). This goes on for the first four years or so, alleviated by streaming, but not eliminated because a school is as much about what happens in the school corridor and at the gate as it is about the classroom. Then comes the change, when the disruptive start to leave and the non-disruptive emerge, blinking in the sunlight tentatively at first wanting to be sure the hardcases are gone and it is ok to have a normal conversation. The atmosphere changes. By the 5th and 6th form it is a different school. Academic achievement is not a matter of shame.
The [not so] funny thing is that the same effect, in miniature, was actually present in my grammar. Doubtless our nutters were fewer in number and considerably less nutty, but in the first few years there was still an element of learning not being cool.
Having attended schools where the only way to get any attention at all was to throw a chair or dribble on it you can understand my total lack of sympathy. I, personally, ended up choosing a 2 hour daily commute to the first half reasonable school outside my LEA that would let me in.
Oh yes, no sympathy is warranted or expected. I went to a fantastic school. It was more an observation that the same dynamics apply everywhere if the teachers aren't on top of everything - notably the observation that "school is as much about what happens in the school corridor and at the gate as it is about the classroom".
How did you get on in your eventual school?
Not having to watch my own back constantly allowed me to play catch up for half a decade and I eventually did reasonably well. It's a shame it had to cost me 10 hours a week commuting and my parents the equivalent of a mortgage payment or two a year in bus fares. It's early days yet but May is the first major politician in a long time that even seems to pretend to care about the C1s and C2s.
Paul Waugh Another key announcement: new grammars will allow kids to move from non selectives at 14 and 16 not just 11. Or lessons in specific subjects
Trying to graft such a system on to the present system sounds like a recipe for chaos.
Paul Waugh Another key announcement: new grammars will allow kids to move from non selectives at 14 and 16 not just 11. Or lessons in specific subjects
Trying to graft such a system on to the present system sounds like a recipe for chaos.
That depends; there are already selective grammars which offer open sixth form entry (subject to minimum GCSE requirements). Age 14 is more problematic, but I could see such a system working within an academy chain, for instance.
Listening to May's speech, which was quite light on detail, my impression is that any change is going to be incremental, and offering a degree of freedom in an academy system which is (in theory) supposed to be self governing is not a bad thing.
This is a very important speech. The attack on private schools is real Nixon-in-China stuff.
Disgraceful class based envy. She should bugger off and join the Labour party or Momentum
Why doesn't everyone just swap parties? Most of the Labour MPs are, apparently, Red Tory scum and now seems Tory party is full of the 'hug a working class family' brigade.
What I liked least was the lean towards more religious schools. Apart form anything else, segregation by religion has far too great an overlap with segregation by race in some metropolitan areas.
I wonder if "charitable status" is going to be examined more widely by this Government and not just in relation to schools.
Guide Dogs for the Blind, Cancer research and Cats protection league are obviously charities, but I have my doubts as to some 'others' recently mentioned in the press.
Paul Waugh Another key announcement: new grammars will allow kids to move from non selectives at 14 and 16 not just 11. Or lessons in specific subjects
This is not new - existing grammar schools have always added students in any year group with vacancies - my own also regularly added around a hundred at 16 into the sixth form.
Well, the comically weak Labour opposition helps, then and now. And it was Cameron that achieved that (as well as the destruction of the Lib Dems). But an appeal to the working class - and more than that, the working class mentality - is a vital component.
Reading through that should absolutely terrify moderate Labour MPs. The PM is firmly placing her tanks on their lawn.
It's Buy Your House from Thatcher era stuff. For the aspirational lower middle/working class family - it's right in step with recent BMG polling on Labour voters.
Reading through that should absolutely terrify moderate Labour MPs. The PM is firmly placing her tanks on their lawn.
It's Buy Your House from Thatcher era stuff. For the aspirational lower middle/working class family - it's right in step with recent BMG polling on Labour voters.
Not really. Anyone could buy their council property. Most parents will not be able to get their kids into a grammar school.
I'm a little surprised to see the Conservatives agreeing to the foundation of 100% Muslim-only madrasahs as state schools. No doubt this will play well with the tabloids.
Yeah, I am worried about the bit on faith schools.
Trouble is that Christian based faith schools are popular, and one can't discriminate.
Why not?
There have been well documented problems with such schools and I can see no good reason why we should permit them just because other faith schools (which have not had such problems) are permitted.
Discrimination for relevant reasons is not only not wrong but desirable, indeed essential.
Permitting schools to exist which teach a curriculum/way of life which is incompatible with life in Britain/hostile to our values or which lead to the sort of segregation which makes integration difficult or impossible is wrong. And it is no answer to say that other faith schools are permitted.
Ignoring matters which are relevant is stupidity of the highest order at a time when we have well documented problems in this country (as well as elsewhere in Europe) of integration of Muslims into our societies and the violence (both to some of the children subject to such education and to others in the wider society) this can lead to.
Reading through that should absolutely terrify moderate Labour MPs. The PM is firmly placing her tanks on their lawn.
It's Buy Your House from Thatcher era stuff. For the aspirational lower middle/working class family - it's right in step with recent BMG polling on Labour voters.
Paul Waugh Another key announcement: new grammars will allow kids to move from non selectives at 14 and 16 not just 11. Or lessons in specific subjects
Transfers at 14 sounds a sensible idea I wonder why no one has thought of it before. Except that they did it happened under the 1944 Act. Technical Schools as have been suggested by several people on here this morning were also in the '44 Act - they just didn't really happen in the numbers that were needed. In fact the '44 Act was a watered down version of the 1874 proposals which were themselves a bit of a watered down version of the German system.
As for the 11+ exam, why is it actually necessary. The old Inner London Education Authority did away with it in the 1960s but kept grammar schools. Selection was by performance at primary school plus an interview by the headteacher of the child and his/her parents. We now have the Key Stage tests so more information is available about a child's academic ability than ever it was in those days.
I was a grammar school boy and there is no doubt that helped enormously to lift me off the Wandsworth Council estate. However, I don't think I could support their reintroduction now. Partly because, like conscription, I think they belong to a different age, partly because I do not think the are necessary - look at Schools like the City Academy in Hackney ( http://thecityacademyhackney.org/ ) it produces results as good as if not better than most grammar schools and without selection. Mostly though I think that to reintroduce grammar schools is to focus at the wrong end of the problem.
Grammar schools address the education of the top 20%(ish), the actual big problem is in the bottom 20%, especially in pre-school years, and, as Max has said, the middle deciles.
One last thought: is the UK the only country in Europe that feels it necessary to muck about with its education system every five years or so? If so why?
Paul Waugh Another key announcement: new grammars will allow kids to move from non selectives at 14 and 16 not just 11. Or lessons in specific subjects
This is not new - existing grammar schools have always added students in any year group with vacancies - my own also regularly added around a hundred at 16 into the sixth form.
Ditto the two grammar schools here in Salisbury. – None of the 3 local state schools provide higher education at A level, as you can imagine, both are very popular choices after GCSE results are in.
I wonder if "charitable status" is going to be examined more widely by this Government and not just in relation to schools.
Guide Dogs for the Blind, Cancer research and Cats protection league are obviously charities, but I have my doubts as to some 'others' recently mentioned in the press.
I hope so, a hell of a lot of charities seem to be political movements in disguise.
Reading through that should absolutely terrify moderate Labour MPs. The PM is firmly placing her tanks on their lawn.
It's Buy Your House from Thatcher era stuff. For the aspirational lower middle/working class family - it's right in step with recent BMG polling on Labour voters.
Not really. Anyone could buy their council property. Most parents will not be able to get their kids into a grammar school.
I thought a while ago you were quite pro Grammar schools?
Through their charitable status, private schools collectively reduce their tax bills by millions every year. And I want to consult on how we can amend Charity Commission guidance for independent schools to enact a tougher test on the amount of public benefit required to maintain charitable status.
It’s important to state that this will be proportionate to the size and scale of the school in question. Not every school is an Eton or a Harrow. Many public schools are nowhere near that size.
Smaller independent schools who do not have the capacity to take on full sponsorship of a local state school will be asked to provide more limited help such as direct school-to-school support where appropriate. This could include supporting teaching in minority subjects such as further maths or classics, which state schools often struggle to make viable. It could include ensuring their senior leaders become directors of Multi-Academy Trusts; providing greater access to their facilities and providing sixth-form scholarships to a proportion of pupils in year 11 at each local school.
But for those with the capacity and capability, we will ask them to go further and actually sponsor or set up a new government-funded school in the state sector and take responsibility for running it and ensuring its success.
I wonder if "charitable status" is going to be examined more widely by this Government and not just in relation to schools.
Guide Dogs for the Blind, Cancer research and Cats protection league are obviously charities, but I have my doubts as to some 'others' recently mentioned in the press.
The whole charity sector needs a really good shake up, to benefit from tax breaks they should clearly be a public good in their activities.
Asking the public schools to contribute to their communities is fair game, but the real clampdown needs to be on the larger charities which are run as big businesses and spend more cash on marketing and lobbying than on their prime objectives. "Shelter" actually provide shelter for how many people?
Kent is hardly a good proxy for the likely impact of May's policy. As a relic of the postwar tripartite (actually bipartite) system, it provides grammar education for around 20% of pupils. There is no way in which anything like this is achievable across the rest of the country (particularly if the funding for this effort is going to be around £50m a year).
You'd need to look at local authorities where grammars are relatively isolated survivors from the bygone era to get a better idea of likely outcomes.
I wonder if "charitable status" is going to be examined more widely by this Government and not just in relation to schools.
Guide Dogs for the Blind, Cancer research and Cats protection league are obviously charities, but I have my doubts as to some 'others' recently mentioned in the press.
I seriously hope so. My charitable giving fell away after chuggers/pestering/shiny HQs/CEO pay/government handouts.
I gave £250 to FureverHomes dog rescue a couple of months ago - that's a kennel year cost. That's what I call a charity in the conventional sense. I'd include Dog's Trust as another in the propah charity club. I've never seen them bracketed with many of the others. I still haven't got over Age Concern taking the piss with their energy bill rip-off.
Reading through that should absolutely terrify moderate Labour MPs. The PM is firmly placing her tanks on their lawn.
It's Buy Your House from Thatcher era stuff. For the aspirational lower middle/working class family - it's right in step with recent BMG polling on Labour voters.
Not really. Anyone could buy their council property. Most parents will not be able to get their kids into a grammar school.
I thought a while ago you were quite pro Grammar schools?
I am in principle. But I have always said that it's vital to ensure that they do not prejudice the interests of the majority of kids who will not attend them.
Reading through that should absolutely terrify moderate Labour MPs. The PM is firmly placing her tanks on their lawn.
It's Buy Your House from Thatcher era stuff. For the aspirational lower middle/working class family - it's right in step with recent BMG polling on Labour voters.
Yup! Reminds me more than a little of another woman PM from my youth, who stayed in the job for more than a decade. The party of aspiration.
Policies and announcements that have nothing to do with May’s theme of meritocracy are being delayed or shunned until ministers can think of a way to make a link. In some departments, announcements and updates on old projects where the money has already been spent are being held back
Through their charitable status, private schools collectively reduce their tax bills by millions every year. And I want to consult on how we can amend Charity Commission guidance for independent schools to enact a tougher test on the amount of public benefit required to maintain charitable status.
It’s important to state that this will be proportionate to the size and scale of the school in question. Not every school is an Eton or a Harrow. Many public schools are nowhere near that size.
Smaller independent schools who do not have the capacity to take on full sponsorship of a local state school will be asked to provide more limited help such as direct school-to-school support where appropriate. This could include supporting teaching in minority subjects such as further maths or classics, which state schools often struggle to make viable. It could include ensuring their senior leaders become directors of Multi-Academy Trusts; providing greater access to their facilities and providing sixth-form scholarships to a proportion of pupils in year 11 at each local school.
But for those with the capacity and capability, we will ask them to go further and actually sponsor or set up a new government-funded school in the state sector and take responsibility for running it and ensuring its success.
That's not unreasonable, and I wouldn't call it an "attack" on private schools, but I'd want to see the detail.
Through their charitable status, private schools collectively reduce their tax bills by millions every year. And I want to consult on how we can amend Charity Commission guidance for independent schools to enact a tougher test on the amount of public benefit required to maintain charitable status.
It’s important to state that this will be proportionate to the size and scale of the school in question. Not every school is an Eton or a Harrow. Many public schools are nowhere near that size.
Smaller independent schools who do not have the capacity to take on full sponsorship of a local state school will be asked to provide more limited help such as direct school-to-school support where appropriate. This could include supporting teaching in minority subjects such as further maths or classics, which state schools often struggle to make viable. It could include ensuring their senior leaders become directors of Multi-Academy Trusts; providing greater access to their facilities and providing sixth-form scholarships to a proportion of pupils in year 11 at each local school.
But for those with the capacity and capability, we will ask them to go further and actually sponsor or set up a new government-funded school in the state sector and take responsibility for running it and ensuring its success.
The tax private schools save is less than the cost of educating the children that attend them in the public sector. So the State gains financially from the fact that people are willing to spend their taxed income in this way in the same way as the NHS gains from the fact that some choose to use private medicine rather than NHS resources.
I accept that there are social mobility and snobbery issues in respect of private schools. But this tax benefit stuff really is nonsense.
Who are you going to believe? Theresa May or your own lyin' eyes?
If you think May was proposing a rollout of the Kent system across the country, you were listening to a different speech.
One test for social mobility will be to see whether any new grammars are required to provide preferential selection for pupil premium children (providing that they achieve the threshold mark for grammar entrance)
Comments
Ie not just the poorest kids. Signif.
Sound of tanks being parked all over Labour's lawn......
Also not sure how the Osbornites challenge this de haut en bas.....
I'm a thatcherite leaver, and I'm definitely against them. Then again I'm a comp boy and I;ve seen how well-run streamed comps can work.
There really is nothing like being educated with your intellectual peers, but mixing with children from all backgrounds at the same time.
You can see how many in the labour party lack an insight into the people they are supposed to represent because they have seldom mixed with them.
She really does genuinely believe that bringing back grammar schools is the answer to improving educational standards.
The woman has been "on the scene" for like 20 years but hardly anyone know's anything about her. It's perfectly possible she'll turn out to be one of the radical PM's we've had in decades.
It's the same with Brexit. People think she put the three Brexiteers in place so that they'd self-immolate and allow her to go for Soft Brexit, but what if she put them in place because she wants a hard Brexit?
That's what the signs are pointing towards to me...
If she is intending to govern as a radical PM she'll need a bigger majority though. Election Spring 2017 after the Commons defeats her on Grammars?
May making big pitch for lower middle class: "the hidden disadvantaged".
Paul Waugh
Sun reader vote. May: definition of disadvantage shd be widened beyond FreeSchoolMeals to inc those "on modest incomes" but not on benefits
We don't elect Prime Ministers in this country. We elect constituency Members of Parliament. There's no such thing as a PM having a mandate separate from that which the party with a working majority of MPs wins. Theresa May has as much of a mandate as any other British Prime Minister.
Of course, whether you believe the new-fangled rights of Conservative party members should have a say in who is their leader is a different matter but one that, anyway, never existed before Cameron. As Labour are discovering, giving members a say is not quite the utopia they imagined.
For anyone wondering, I remain entirely uncertain of May. We'll have to wait and see.
It's about nuance of tone - she's saying things that would be hard to understand by reading a report - it requires a bit of Been There Done That to sound authentic.
How did you get on in your eventual school?
The son's been beaten up again over the summer, and I believe the police are still involved.
They're both off to a new school (I think they started last week), and the new school has said there was nothing they could do as the bully had done nothing in that school. As far as they're concerned it's a clean slate. Meanwhile the young lad is not only suffering occasional physical pain from the injury, but is in fear of what happens at the school.
Not a pleasant situation.
This is a fight that she has foolishly stepped into.
The difference was then made up by a central government grant that paid more to councils up north (who recovered less in council tax revenue due to its design). Guess what Osbourne cut without thinking and refused to listen to when it was pointed out....
And I am also uncertain. Not hostile, just uncertain.
Could some sort of self-defence lessons help provide the young fellow with both the means to protect himself and some increased measure of confidence?
This will have an impact on growth in Q3 improving the prospects of it being positive.
May is delivering something that lies outside Cameron's grammar.
If accurate, that's a extraordinary display of ignorance by a former head of OFSTED. This from 2012:
http://www.elevenplusexams.co.uk/schools/grammar-to-academy-status
It's early days yet but May is the first major politician in a long time that even seems to pretend to care about the C1s and C2s.
May: We will remove 50 per cent rule to allow the growth in capacity that Catholic schools can offer.
That seems reasonable to me, but it must be tempting for May to stay her hand on calling an election to let Labour stew in its own juices. I hope she calls an election soon, but I doubt she will.
Another key announcement: new grammars will allow kids to move from non selectives at 14 and 16 not just 11. Or lessons in specific subjects
It sounds like a typical brainiac versus bully situation that's got really out of hand.
"No place for dogma here, John"
Excellent.
It is the same with the perennial cries of "bring back Matron" in the NHS. That sort of disciplinarian approach would see people sacked, possibly with large awards re bullying etc.
Modern matrons are a useless bunch, as Nurse Anne put it so well:
http://militantmedicalnurse.blogspot.dk/2008/02/matrons-shoot-them.html?m=1
Teaching, police and similar blogs are pretty similar...
He then adds he thinks its nine - it could be more.....
Indeed. How she must have seethed under Cameron!
...and with that Education Secretary Justine Greening has been given her set text, and is in for some close tutoring. #education
The Serious Fraud Office has charged three former #Tesco executives in relation to its 2014 profit overstatement
Age 14 is more problematic, but I could see such a system working within an academy chain, for instance.
Listening to May's speech, which was quite light on detail, my impression is that any change is going to be incremental, and offering a degree of freedom in an academy system which is (in theory) supposed to be self governing is not a bad thing.
Apart form anything else, segregation by religion has far too great an overlap with segregation by race in some metropolitan areas.
And how Cameron couldn't.
Guide Dogs for the Blind, Cancer research and Cats protection league are obviously charities, but I have my doubts as to some 'others' recently mentioned in the press.
https://twitter.com/xtophercook/status/773830196189429762
There have been well documented problems with such schools and I can see no good reason why we should permit them just because other faith schools (which have not had such problems) are permitted.
Discrimination for relevant reasons is not only not wrong but desirable, indeed essential.
Permitting schools to exist which teach a curriculum/way of life which is incompatible with life in Britain/hostile to our values or which lead to the sort of segregation which makes integration difficult or impossible is wrong. And it is no answer to say that other faith schools are permitted.
Ignoring matters which are relevant is stupidity of the highest order at a time when we have well documented problems in this country (as well as elsewhere in Europe) of integration of Muslims into our societies and the violence (both to some of the children subject to such education and to others in the wider society) this can lead to.
I reckon thats probably seven times more than Cameron would have managed, and nine times more than Osborne.....
As for the 11+ exam, why is it actually necessary. The old Inner London Education Authority did away with it in the 1960s but kept grammar schools. Selection was by performance at primary school plus an interview by the headteacher of the child and his/her parents. We now have the Key Stage tests so more information is available about a child's academic ability than ever it was in those days.
I was a grammar school boy and there is no doubt that helped enormously to lift me off the Wandsworth Council estate. However, I don't think I could support their reintroduction now. Partly because, like conscription, I think they belong to a different age, partly because I do not think the are necessary - look at Schools like the City Academy in Hackney ( http://thecityacademyhackney.org/ ) it produces results as good as if not better than most grammar schools and without selection. Mostly though I think that to reintroduce grammar schools is to focus at the wrong end of the problem.
Grammar schools address the education of the top 20%(ish), the actual big problem is in the bottom 20%, especially in pre-school years, and, as Max has said, the middle deciles.
One last thought: is the UK the only country in Europe that feels it necessary to muck about with its education system every five years or so? If so why?
[edit] make that 4 local state schools.
It’s important to state that this will be proportionate to the size and scale of the school in question. Not every school is an Eton or a Harrow. Many public schools are nowhere near that size.
Smaller independent schools who do not have the capacity to take on full sponsorship of a local state school will be asked to provide more limited help such as direct school-to-school support where appropriate. This could include supporting teaching in minority subjects such as further maths or classics, which state schools often struggle to make viable. It could include ensuring their senior leaders become directors of Multi-Academy Trusts; providing greater access to their facilities and providing sixth-form scholarships to a proportion of pupils in year 11 at each local school.
But for those with the capacity and capability, we will ask them to go further and actually sponsor or set up a new government-funded school in the state sector and take responsibility for running it and ensuring its success.
Asking the public schools to contribute to their communities is fair game, but the real clampdown needs to be on the larger charities which are run as big businesses and spend more cash on marketing and lobbying than on their prime objectives. "Shelter" actually provide shelter for how many people?
There is no way in which anything like this is achievable across the rest of the country (particularly if the funding for this effort is going to be around £50m a year).
You'd need to look at local authorities where grammars are relatively isolated survivors from the bygone era to get a better idea of likely outcomes.
I gave £250 to FureverHomes dog rescue a couple of months ago - that's a kennel year cost. That's what I call a charity in the conventional sense. I'd include Dog's Trust as another in the propah charity club. I've never seen them bracketed with many of the others. I still haven't got over Age Concern taking the piss with their energy bill rip-off.
The Scientology judgement a few years ago indicated that merely self-identifying as a religion was enough for the tax breaks.
Reminds me more than a little of another woman PM from my youth, who stayed in the job for more than a decade. The party of aspiration.
http://order-order.com/2016/09/09/244876/
I accept that there are social mobility and snobbery issues in respect of private schools. But this tax benefit stuff really is nonsense.
One test for social mobility will be to see whether any new grammars are required to provide preferential selection for pupil premium children (providing that they achieve the threshold mark for grammar entrance)