@ydoethur I know a few former teachers who went on to have successful careers in town planning. One former colleague quit a job as head of geography when he was in his late 30's and took on an entry level role in planning, 13 years later he has just been made a partner in a big law firm. Its pretty easy if you can just keep your head down working in a Council for a few years in a junior role whilst getting started. You do have to put up with a lot of shit and ever changing government regulations but I doubt it is as bad as working in a school.
Thank you for the suggestion. There's certainly going to be a lot of work in that over the next few years and it is a job I might enjoy. I will have a look into it.
Good stuff - you may also want to think about conservation officer. Not as well paid but you get to look around old buildings all day and write about them. I've got a friend who changed from teaching (he was a lecturer in an FE college) when he was in his early 50's, he loves it. He never actually even did any training in it, he got the job as he was the only applicant.
Not grammar schools again, please. The only place I ever come across nostalgia for grammar schools is on PB. They are the past, not the future. Even the Tory Party has shut up about them (apart from in Epping).
UKIP wanted a "grammar school in every town". No other party is interested. Tells you all you need to know. And why? Because the evidence (educational and social mobility) that they do more harm than good is incontrovertible. Trust me.
Not sure why you'd expect anyone to 'trust you', and this post is a collection of sloppy empty clichés, of which 'they are the past not the future' is the emptiest.
Thanks for the rudeness. I've spent the last forty years working in education and educational policy, much of it on data analysis, at a high level. So while I'm pretty ignorant about much, I think I know about this. And guess what? The Tory party doesn't advocate the return of a tertiary system of secondary education.
Any time. I am sure that you have a great deal of knowledge on the subject, but you claimed 'incontrevertible evidence' that grammar schools have done more harm than good. If you have such evidence, why not present it?
The problem with grammar schools is not the grammar schools. Grammar schools, by and large, do a great job of educating kids. The 25% of kids who get into grammar schools do better than the top 25% of kids in comprehensives.
The problem is that the educational outcomes of the people who end up at the secondary moderns is significantly worse than if they had been to comprehensive schools.
And I would argue that the educational system in the UK's big problem for a very long time has been a lack of focus on the 75% of kids who probably shouldn't be going to university. It's ensuring - as they do in Switzerland or Germany - that they get the right skills to succeed.
The grammar discussion is the wrong one. It's a myopic focus on kids who are mostly going to do fine anyway. When the people we should worrying about aren't the people getting good GCSEs and A-Levels.
Germany has grammar schools, gymnasiums, it also has excellent technical and vocational skills in other schools
The point I'm making is not that there shouldn't be selection (although I suspect 13/14 is a better age than 11), but that the British system fails those who don't go down the academic/grammar route.
As a country, we do a poor job getting the right skills to people who are in the bottom 60%. And that problem is worse in grammar school areas.
This discussion should be 'how do we improve the outcomes for the bottom 60% of students'?
Descending from the important questions in the Header to the nakedly partisan - apols - I wonder how a Sunak/Starmer match-up would play to the country? I haven't quite worked myself out a take on this yet. I do probably need to since he looks nailed on if and when 'it' finally happens.
Starmer's only real appeal is that he is the boring-but-competent one against the charismatic but flawed partygate buffoonery of Boris (being generous to Boris there).
Sunak would essentially occupy the same boring-but-competent territory. Which is bad for Starmer.
Except that one has a modicum of working class background and a trusted profession.
The other is the richest person in Parliament and was a banker. Replace the first letter & you have how most people view them.
lawyer who are almost as unloved as bankers.
Utterly untrue as Mike Smithson demonstrated the other day.
IPSOS MORI (One of your two permitted pollsters):
Other professions trusted by more than half of the public include museum curators, the police, lawyers, civil servants, the ordinary man/woman on the street and clergy/priests. Professions with negative net trust ratings include bankers, local councillors, business leaders, professional footballers, estate agents and journalists.
"If Old Labour had bulldozed Eton in the Seventies then almost everyone's life would be better today." Discuss.
"If Old Labour had not bulldozed most of the Grammar schools in the Sixties and Seventies then almost everyone's life would be better today." Discuss
Apart from the people who didn't get into the grammar schools I presume
No, everyone. The presence of those from the working class in positions of power helps everyone.
Apart from the people who didn't get into the grammar schools
Yep appalling institutions
So appalling they produced the highest number of non privately educated people products in our top professions, yes even judges and lawyers had plenty of grammar school alumni. More so than the number who now come from comprehensives
If you got rid of private schools and grammar schools then 100% of our PMs, people in top professions and judges and lawyers would be from comprehensives. Explain that one.
If you got rid of Waitrose, Marks and Spencer and Sainsburys all their customers would have to shop at Tesco, Aldi or Lidl. Explain that one.
I believe in choice for parents as much as consumers
Let me break it down for you.
1. I don't believe we should abolish existing grammar schools.
2. I don't believe we should abolish private schools.
3. However, if we did, then 100% of our 'elite' would be from comprehensives.
I ask again, explain that one?
If you ban private schools, then the ‘elites’ will send their kids to school abroad - just as the elites of many other countries currently aspire to be able to send their kids to school in the UK.
Only a small minority.
My point is that HY quotes statistics without any appreciation of the other factors at play.
We know that comprehensives are better in rich areas and we know that wealth players a big part in children's prospects, regardless of whether you go to a comprehensive or a grammar school.
Therefore simply saying "ah but X% of our 'elite' went to a grammar school" tells us absolutely nothing about the benefit of grammar schools.
It's just bollocks, as usual.
Your point is you are an ideological leftwing socialist who would deny parents the choice of where to send their children and would nationalise much of industry too given the chance.
Yes indeed comprehensives are better in wealthy areas and the left destroyed the best tools of tackling that for a bright child by abolishing the grammar schools that used to exist in inner cities or ex industrial areas or poor seaside towns. So the only ones left are generally in more prosperous areas with Tory councils where comprehensive schools and academies tend to be better anyway so they are less needed.
So we still have selection in state education, just by house price and vicar's reference, not by IQ
Also, grammar schools do not select by IQ. They select by wealth. Only a fool would try to pretend that wealth does not increase your chances of passing entrance exams by better access to learning materials and private tutors.
No, private schools and the best comprehensive schools select by parental wealth or house price (or church attendance).
Grammar schools select by IQ. If you have a low IQ tutoring will not get you through a grammar school entrance exam, if you have a high IQ you will pass a grammar school entrance exam regardless of tutoring
We have been here before also. Yes it will. You can train for IQ tests unless you are particularly dim. I gave you some examples of stuff you could do last time we had this argument. I could easily raise someone's IQ result with training and I had to administer such test for potential employees for one the large computer companies I used to work for. I guessed I could add 10 - 20 points to someone's test, but later in that discussion @rcs1000 posted a link showing the improvement could be as much as 30 points.
Here is just one of those techniques: If given a sequence of numbers and you have to find the next number and can't see it simply subtract each number from the next number in the sequence and create a new sequence. Repeat until a pattern appears. This can be done in seconds so doesn't waste time and works nearly all the time for sequences in IQ tests.
There are a few particularly dim pupils in some private schools without entrance exams.
There are no particularly dim pupils in grammar schools
There are you know. I taught several when I was teaching in a grammar.
It was not a good place for them. They found keeping up very, very tough.
By particularly dim we mean below average IQ, as I said there are none in grammar schools
Yet another subject about which you clearly know nothing.
But I'll leave it there.
Sorry but you are just not worth it.
Back to someone more interesting ...
Oh I know nothing because I don't accord to your left liberal ideological agenda, well tough I do not care less
Hyufd, it's not that you know nothing. You do know lots of things. Your knowledge of polling is unrivalled. And invaluable.
But at the same time, you do like to pontificate on subjects you don't know much about, and make mistakes as a result. Which isn't illegal. I can think of many posters who would accuse me of doing much the same, quite possibly starting with you (certainly your banned alter ego Justin would). The issue is that you almost never correct mistakes when they're pointed out to you. Which means, you (a) never learn from them and (b) look absolutely ridiculous as a result of your efforts to warp the facts to fit your misconceptions.
As I said before, I didn't find this anything other than irritating when we knew each other in person and I withdrew from your society as a result. Others found it funny. In fact my flatmate (another Simon) got a sort of bizarre pleasure out of trolling you and would frequently regale me, at great length, with your replies.
What's making matters worse for you at the moment is that as a loyal Tory you are trying to defend the truly indefensible even to start.
Just learn some humility. You might even enjoy yourself more.
I share some of your opinions of @HYUFD, in particular an occasional admission of being wrong is something he should consider.
Some of your post however is a bit close to Doxxing, and like many others who use pseudonyms here, something that makes me a bit uncomfortable.
Descending from the important questions in the Header to the nakedly partisan - apols - I wonder how a Sunak/Starmer match-up would play to the country? I haven't quite worked myself out a take on this yet. I do probably need to since he looks nailed on if and when 'it' finally happens.
Starmer's only real appeal is that he is the boring-but-competent one against the charismatic but flawed partygate buffoonery of Boris (being generous to Boris there).
Sunak would essentially occupy the same boring-but-competent territory. Which is bad for Starmer.
Except that one has a modicum of working class background and a trusted profession.
The other is the richest person in Parliament and was a banker. Replace the first letter & you have how most people view them.
lawyer who are almost as unloved as bankers.
Utterly untrue as Mike Smithson demonstrated the other day.
IPSOS MORI (One of your two permitted pollsters):
Other professions trusted by more than half of the public include museum curators, the police, lawyers, civil servants, the ordinary man/woman on the street and clergy/priests. Professions with negative net trust ratings include bankers, local councillors, business leaders, professional footballers, estate agents and journalists.
"If Old Labour had bulldozed Eton in the Seventies then almost everyone's life would be better today." Discuss.
"If Old Labour had not bulldozed most of the Grammar schools in the Sixties and Seventies then almost everyone's life would be better today." Discuss
Apart from the people who didn't get into the grammar schools I presume
No, everyone. The presence of those from the working class in positions of power helps everyone.
Apart from the people who didn't get into the grammar schools
Yep appalling institutions
So appalling they produced the highest number of non privately educated people products in our top professions, yes even judges and lawyers had plenty of grammar school alumni. More so than the number who now come from comprehensives
If you got rid of private schools and grammar schools then 100% of our PMs, people in top professions and judges and lawyers would be from comprehensives. Explain that one.
If you got rid of Waitrose, Marks and Spencer and Sainsburys all their customers would have to shop at Tesco, Aldi or Lidl. Explain that one.
I believe in choice for parents as much as consumers
Let me break it down for you.
1. I don't believe we should abolish existing grammar schools.
2. I don't believe we should abolish private schools.
3. However, if we did, then 100% of our 'elite' would be from comprehensives.
I ask again, explain that one?
If you ban private schools, then the ‘elites’ will send their kids to school abroad - just as the elites of many other countries currently aspire to be able to send their kids to school in the UK.
Only a small minority.
My point is that HY quotes statistics without any appreciation of the other factors at play.
We know that comprehensives are better in rich areas and we know that wealth players a big part in children's prospects, regardless of whether you go to a comprehensive or a grammar school.
Therefore simply saying "ah but X% of our 'elite' went to a grammar school" tells us absolutely nothing about the benefit of grammar schools.
It's just bollocks, as usual.
Your point is you are an ideological leftwing socialist who would deny parents the choice of where to send their children and would nationalise much of industry too given the chance.
Yes indeed comprehensives are better in wealthy areas and the left destroyed the best tools of tackling that for a bright child by abolishing the grammar schools that used to exist in inner cities or ex industrial areas or poor seaside towns. So the only ones left are generally in more prosperous areas with Tory councils where comprehensive schools and academies tend to be better anyway so they are less needed.
So we still have selection in state education, just by house price and vicar's reference, not by IQ
Also, grammar schools do not select by IQ. They select by wealth. Only a fool would try to pretend that wealth does not increase your chances of passing entrance exams by better access to learning materials and private tutors.
No, private schools and the best comprehensive schools select by parental wealth or house price (or church attendance).
Grammar schools select by IQ. If you have a low IQ tutoring will not get you through a grammar school entrance exam, if you have a high IQ you will pass a grammar school entrance exam regardless of tutoring
We have been here before also. Yes it will. You can train for IQ tests unless you are particularly dim. I gave you some examples of stuff you could do last time we had this argument. I could easily raise someone's IQ result with training and I had to administer such test for potential employees for one the large computer companies I used to work for. I guessed I could add 10 - 20 points to someone's test, but later in that discussion @rcs1000 posted a link showing the improvement could be as much as 30 points.
Here is just one of those techniques: If given a sequence of numbers and you have to find the next number and can't see it simply subtract each number from the next number in the sequence and create a new sequence. Repeat until a pattern appears. This can be done in seconds so doesn't waste time and works nearly all the time for sequences in IQ tests.
There are a few particularly dim pupils in some private schools without entrance exams.
There are no particularly dim pupils in grammar schools
There are you know. I taught several when I was teaching in a grammar.
It was not a good place for them. They found keeping up very, very tough.
By particularly dim we mean below average IQ, as I said there are none in grammar schools
Yet another subject about which you clearly know nothing.
But I'll leave it there.
Sorry but you are just not worth it.
Back to someone more interesting ...
Oh I know nothing because I don't accord to your left liberal ideological agenda, well tough I do not care less
Hyufd, it's not that you know nothing. You do know lots of things. Your knowledge of polling is unrivalled. And invaluable.
But at the same time, you do like to pontificate on subjects you don't know much about, and make mistakes as a result. Which isn't illegal. I can think of many posters who would accuse me of doing much the same, quite possibly starting with you (certainly your banned alter ego Justin would). The issue is that you almost never correct mistakes when they're pointed out to you. Which means, you (a) never learn from them and (b) look absolutely ridiculous as a result of your efforts to warp the facts to fit your misconceptions.
As I said before, I didn't find this anything other than irritating when we knew each other in person and I withdrew from your society as a result. Others found it funny. In fact my flatmate (another Simon) got a sort of bizarre pleasure out of trolling you and would frequently regale me, at great length, with your replies.
What's making matters worse for you at the moment is that as a loyal Tory you are trying to defend the truly indefensible even to start.
Just learn some humility. You might even enjoy yourself more.
Except normally humility is a cue for accept the left liberal consensus on x issue, here grammar schools it may be something else because we have extracted one data point we will use to push our point of view.
Which I will not do.
I cannot work out precisely what society you are talking about, I was involved in hiking at Aberystwyth and was a member of the Conservative Society but never its chairman or even on its committee (although I was chairman of the Conservative group when I was at Warwick)
Well, if it helps, it was the Walking Club.
I hadn't made the connection until fairly recently.
ETA Incidentally by 'withdrawing from your society' I meant 'stopped talking to you,' not left the walking club!
Fine but it was never my society, I was only a member of it
Aaargh! I know it wasn't your society! That isn't what I meant! I just stopped talking to you, which is 'withdrawing from your society!'
I do miss the walking club. Didn't go on many walks because I was so busy on Sundays with Holy Trinity, but did enjoy the nights out.
There was another person incidentally a couple of years before you arrived who was a little bit like you, and did apply for several committee positions. Other Simon wrote the manifestoes for the candidates he strongarmed into standing against him. I particularly enjoyed the one for the first aider:
'If you have an accident, and feel my hands wandering all over you, it's not because I give a fuck what's wrong with you. I'm just looking for your money.'
Descending from the important questions in the Header to the nakedly partisan - apols - I wonder how a Sunak/Starmer match-up would play to the country? I haven't quite worked myself out a take on this yet. I do probably need to since he looks nailed on if and when 'it' finally happens.
Starmer's only real appeal is that he is the boring-but-competent one against the charismatic but flawed partygate buffoonery of Boris (being generous to Boris there).
Sunak would essentially occupy the same boring-but-competent territory. Which is bad for Starmer.
Except that one has a modicum of working class background and a trusted profession.
The other is the richest person in Parliament and was a banker. Replace the first letter & you have how most people view them.
lawyer who are almost as unloved as bankers.
Utterly untrue as Mike Smithson demonstrated the other day.
IPSOS MORI (One of your two permitted pollsters):
Other professions trusted by more than half of the public include museum curators, the police, lawyers, civil servants, the ordinary man/woman on the street and clergy/priests. Professions with negative net trust ratings include bankers, local councillors, business leaders, professional footballers, estate agents and journalists.
"If Old Labour had bulldozed Eton in the Seventies then almost everyone's life would be better today." Discuss.
"If Old Labour had not bulldozed most of the Grammar schools in the Sixties and Seventies then almost everyone's life would be better today." Discuss
Apart from the people who didn't get into the grammar schools I presume
No, everyone. The presence of those from the working class in positions of power helps everyone.
Apart from the people who didn't get into the grammar schools
Yep appalling institutions
So appalling they produced the highest number of non privately educated people products in our top professions, yes even judges and lawyers had plenty of grammar school alumni. More so than the number who now come from comprehensives
If you got rid of private schools and grammar schools then 100% of our PMs, people in top professions and judges and lawyers would be from comprehensives. Explain that one.
If you got rid of Waitrose, Marks and Spencer and Sainsburys all their customers would have to shop at Tesco, Aldi or Lidl. Explain that one.
I believe in choice for parents as much as consumers
Let me break it down for you.
1. I don't believe we should abolish existing grammar schools.
2. I don't believe we should abolish private schools.
3. However, if we did, then 100% of our 'elite' would be from comprehensives.
I ask again, explain that one?
If you ban private schools, then the ‘elites’ will send their kids to school abroad - just as the elites of many other countries currently aspire to be able to send their kids to school in the UK.
Only a small minority.
My point is that HY quotes statistics without any appreciation of the other factors at play.
We know that comprehensives are better in rich areas and we know that wealth players a big part in children's prospects, regardless of whether you go to a comprehensive or a grammar school.
Therefore simply saying "ah but X% of our 'elite' went to a grammar school" tells us absolutely nothing about the benefit of grammar schools.
It's just bollocks, as usual.
Your point is you are an ideological leftwing socialist who would deny parents the choice of where to send their children and would nationalise much of industry too given the chance.
Yes indeed comprehensives are better in wealthy areas and the left destroyed the best tools of tackling that for a bright child by abolishing the grammar schools that used to exist in inner cities or ex industrial areas or poor seaside towns. So the only ones left are generally in more prosperous areas with Tory councils where comprehensive schools and academies tend to be better anyway so they are less needed.
So we still have selection in state education, just by house price and vicar's reference, not by IQ
Also, grammar schools do not select by IQ. They select by wealth. Only a fool would try to pretend that wealth does not increase your chances of passing entrance exams by better access to learning materials and private tutors.
No, private schools and the best comprehensive schools select by parental wealth or house price (or church attendance).
Grammar schools select by IQ. If you have a low IQ tutoring will not get you through a grammar school entrance exam, if you have a high IQ you will pass a grammar school entrance exam regardless of tutoring
We have been here before also. Yes it will. You can train for IQ tests unless you are particularly dim. I gave you some examples of stuff you could do last time we had this argument. I could easily raise someone's IQ result with training and I had to administer such test for potential employees for one the large computer companies I used to work for. I guessed I could add 10 - 20 points to someone's test, but later in that discussion @rcs1000 posted a link showing the improvement could be as much as 30 points.
Here is just one of those techniques: If given a sequence of numbers and you have to find the next number and can't see it simply subtract each number from the next number in the sequence and create a new sequence. Repeat until a pattern appears. This can be done in seconds so doesn't waste time and works nearly all the time for sequences in IQ tests.
There are a few particularly dim pupils in some private schools without entrance exams.
There are no particularly dim pupils in grammar schools
There are you know. I taught several when I was teaching in a grammar.
It was not a good place for them. They found keeping up very, very tough.
By particularly dim we mean below average IQ, as I said there are none in grammar schools
Yes, there are. I taught several.
Are you saying your political beliefs trump my practical experience?
One trick incidentally was to get them in not at age 11 but for entry part way through Year 8 or 9, when others had dropped out or moved away. Because grammar schools tend to be less generously funded than other state schools, they are always desperate for money and tended not to mark the exam too harshly.
I can guarantee if you did an IQ test for them, none of those pupils would have an IQ below the national average.
A few might not have had as high an IQ as most of their peers at their grammar school but that is not the same thing
So you are disputing you can train for an IQ test even after the evidence I and @rcs1000 provided to you previously. Previously I gave you a whole lot of techniques and @rcs1000 gave you a link to evidence of such. I could easily raise the IQ score of someone who has never taken a test from 100 to 110 or 120.
We are talking people below 100 IQ.
If a few people of 100 IQ ie average, get tutored to the nth degree to scrape into a grammar it will still not stop someone with a 130+IQ easily passing the entrance exam even without a single tutorial session
Yes, but bell curve statistics apply. Far fewer people of IQ130 than IQ100, so plenty of scope for moneyed parents aka Tory voters to fiddle the system.
Generally however it is only those of IQ 130+ who go on to get the top professional jobs and the highest earning careers (outside of sport and entertainment). Hence identifying those of high IQ from less well off backgrounds and helping them get into top universities and top jobs is more important than a few rich kids of average intelligence who scrape into grammars with tutors and end up with only average careers
Butd if that is the case why bother with grammar schools at all? You're saying they're not much good for even the middling student. And when one considers the harm to the lower students ...
Descending from the important questions in the Header to the nakedly partisan - apols - I wonder how a Sunak/Starmer match-up would play to the country? I haven't quite worked myself out a take on this yet. I do probably need to since he looks nailed on if and when 'it' finally happens.
Starmer's only real appeal is that he is the boring-but-competent one against the charismatic but flawed partygate buffoonery of Boris (being generous to Boris there).
Sunak would essentially occupy the same boring-but-competent territory. Which is bad for Starmer.
Except that one has a modicum of working class background and a trusted profession.
The other is the richest person in Parliament and was a banker. Replace the first letter & you have how most people view them.
lawyer who are almost as unloved as bankers.
Utterly untrue as Mike Smithson demonstrated the other day.
IPSOS MORI (One of your two permitted pollsters):
Other professions trusted by more than half of the public include museum curators, the police, lawyers, civil servants, the ordinary man/woman on the street and clergy/priests. Professions with negative net trust ratings include bankers, local councillors, business leaders, professional footballers, estate agents and journalists.
"If Old Labour had bulldozed Eton in the Seventies then almost everyone's life would be better today." Discuss.
"If Old Labour had not bulldozed most of the Grammar schools in the Sixties and Seventies then almost everyone's life would be better today." Discuss
Apart from the people who didn't get into the grammar schools I presume
No, everyone. The presence of those from the working class in positions of power helps everyone.
Apart from the people who didn't get into the grammar schools
Yep appalling institutions
So appalling they produced the highest number of non privately educated people products in our top professions, yes even judges and lawyers had plenty of grammar school alumni. More so than the number who now come from comprehensives
If you got rid of private schools and grammar schools then 100% of our PMs, people in top professions and judges and lawyers would be from comprehensives. Explain that one.
If you got rid of Waitrose, Marks and Spencer and Sainsburys all their customers would have to shop at Tesco, Aldi or Lidl. Explain that one.
I believe in choice for parents as much as consumers
Let me break it down for you.
1. I don't believe we should abolish existing grammar schools.
2. I don't believe we should abolish private schools.
3. However, if we did, then 100% of our 'elite' would be from comprehensives.
I ask again, explain that one?
If you ban private schools, then the ‘elites’ will send their kids to school abroad - just as the elites of many other countries currently aspire to be able to send their kids to school in the UK.
Only a small minority.
My point is that HY quotes statistics without any appreciation of the other factors at play.
We know that comprehensives are better in rich areas and we know that wealth players a big part in children's prospects, regardless of whether you go to a comprehensive or a grammar school.
Therefore simply saying "ah but X% of our 'elite' went to a grammar school" tells us absolutely nothing about the benefit of grammar schools.
It's just bollocks, as usual.
Your point is you are an ideological leftwing socialist who would deny parents the choice of where to send their children and would nationalise much of industry too given the chance.
Yes indeed comprehensives are better in wealthy areas and the left destroyed the best tools of tackling that for a bright child by abolishing the grammar schools that used to exist in inner cities or ex industrial areas or poor seaside towns. So the only ones left are generally in more prosperous areas with Tory councils where comprehensive schools and academies tend to be better anyway so they are less needed.
So we still have selection in state education, just by house price and vicar's reference, not by IQ
Also, grammar schools do not select by IQ. They select by wealth. Only a fool would try to pretend that wealth does not increase your chances of passing entrance exams by better access to learning materials and private tutors.
No, private schools and the best comprehensive schools select by parental wealth or house price (or church attendance).
Grammar schools select by IQ. If you have a low IQ tutoring will not get you through a grammar school entrance exam, if you have a high IQ you will pass a grammar school entrance exam regardless of tutoring
We have been here before also. Yes it will. You can train for IQ tests unless you are particularly dim. I gave you some examples of stuff you could do last time we had this argument. I could easily raise someone's IQ result with training and I had to administer such test for potential employees for one the large computer companies I used to work for. I guessed I could add 10 - 20 points to someone's test, but later in that discussion @rcs1000 posted a link showing the improvement could be as much as 30 points.
Here is just one of those techniques: If given a sequence of numbers and you have to find the next number and can't see it simply subtract each number from the next number in the sequence and create a new sequence. Repeat until a pattern appears. This can be done in seconds so doesn't waste time and works nearly all the time for sequences in IQ tests.
There are a few particularly dim pupils in some private schools without entrance exams.
There are no particularly dim pupils in grammar schools
There are you know. I taught several when I was teaching in a grammar.
It was not a good place for them. They found keeping up very, very tough.
By particularly dim we mean below average IQ, as I said there are none in grammar schools
Yet another subject about which you clearly know nothing.
But I'll leave it there.
Sorry but you are just not worth it.
Back to someone more interesting ...
Oh I know nothing because I don't accord to your left liberal ideological agenda, well tough I do not care less
Hyufd, it's not that you know nothing. You do know lots of things. Your knowledge of polling is unrivalled. And invaluable.
But at the same time, you do like to pontificate on subjects you don't know much about, and make mistakes as a result. Which isn't illegal. I can think of many posters who would accuse me of doing much the same, quite possibly starting with you (certainly your banned alter ego Justin would). The issue is that you almost never correct mistakes when they're pointed out to you. Which means, you (a) never learn from them and (b) look absolutely ridiculous as a result of your efforts to warp the facts to fit your misconceptions.
As I said before, I didn't find this anything other than irritating when we knew each other in person and I withdrew from your society as a result. Others found it funny. In fact my flatmate (another Simon) got a sort of bizarre pleasure out of trolling you and would frequently regale me, at great length, with your replies.
What's making matters worse for you at the moment is that as a loyal Tory you are trying to defend the truly indefensible even to start.
Just learn some humility. You might even enjoy yourself more.
Except normally humility is a cue for accept the left liberal consensus on x issue, here grammar schools it may be something else because we have extracted one data point we will use to push our point of view.
Which I will not do.
I cannot work out precisely what society you are talking about, I was involved in hiking at Aberystwyth and was a member of the Conservative Society but never its chairman or even on its committee (although I was chairman of the Conservative group when I was at Warwick)
No, humility is accepting that you are from time-to-time wrong.
I'm wrong all the time.
I love it when the people I work with prove me wrong, because that means I've learned something.
The fact that you think that sometimes admitting you're wrong is a "lefty liberal" plot is weird beyond belief.
A month or so ago, I had a big argument with @Leon about Wuhan. And you know what, he was right, and I was wrong. And I said 'you know what, you're absolutely right'. Of course, he's a famous lefty liberal, so I guess that just proves your point.
"If Old Labour had bulldozed Eton in the Seventies then almost everyone's life would be better today." Discuss.
"If Old Labour had not bulldozed most of the Grammar schools in the Sixties and Seventies then almost everyone's life would be better today." Discuss
Not if you went to a secondary modern.
Didn't do IDS and John Prescott or Patrick Stewart much harm
Some people who get run over by cars make a full recovery and also go on to live long and successful lives.
Therefore getting run over by a car is obviously no big deal.
Whence derives this meme that IDS went to secondary modern? He was educated (not to be pedantic about it) at HMS Conway, an independent naval training academy. I played rugby against them at a tender age and Charles Booth's taxonomic label 'vicious and semi-criminal' springs immediately to mind.
Descending from the important questions in the Header to the nakedly partisan - apols - I wonder how a Sunak/Starmer match-up would play to the country? I haven't quite worked myself out a take on this yet. I do probably need to since he looks nailed on if and when 'it' finally happens.
Starmer's only real appeal is that he is the boring-but-competent one against the charismatic but flawed partygate buffoonery of Boris (being generous to Boris there).
Sunak would essentially occupy the same boring-but-competent territory. Which is bad for Starmer.
Except that one has a modicum of working class background and a trusted profession.
The other is the richest person in Parliament and was a banker. Replace the first letter & you have how most people view them.
lawyer who are almost as unloved as bankers.
Utterly untrue as Mike Smithson demonstrated the other day.
IPSOS MORI (One of your two permitted pollsters):
Other professions trusted by more than half of the public include museum curators, the police, lawyers, civil servants, the ordinary man/woman on the street and clergy/priests. Professions with negative net trust ratings include bankers, local councillors, business leaders, professional footballers, estate agents and journalists.
"If Old Labour had bulldozed Eton in the Seventies then almost everyone's life would be better today." Discuss.
"If Old Labour had not bulldozed most of the Grammar schools in the Sixties and Seventies then almost everyone's life would be better today." Discuss
Apart from the people who didn't get into the grammar schools I presume
No, everyone. The presence of those from the working class in positions of power helps everyone.
Apart from the people who didn't get into the grammar schools
Yep appalling institutions
So appalling they produced the highest number of non privately educated people products in our top professions, yes even judges and lawyers had plenty of grammar school alumni. More so than the number who now come from comprehensives
If you got rid of private schools and grammar schools then 100% of our PMs, people in top professions and judges and lawyers would be from comprehensives. Explain that one.
If you got rid of Waitrose, Marks and Spencer and Sainsburys all their customers would have to shop at Tesco, Aldi or Lidl. Explain that one.
I believe in choice for parents as much as consumers
Let me break it down for you.
1. I don't believe we should abolish existing grammar schools.
2. I don't believe we should abolish private schools.
3. However, if we did, then 100% of our 'elite' would be from comprehensives.
I ask again, explain that one?
If you ban private schools, then the ‘elites’ will send their kids to school abroad - just as the elites of many other countries currently aspire to be able to send their kids to school in the UK.
Only a small minority.
My point is that HY quotes statistics without any appreciation of the other factors at play.
We know that comprehensives are better in rich areas and we know that wealth players a big part in children's prospects, regardless of whether you go to a comprehensive or a grammar school.
Therefore simply saying "ah but X% of our 'elite' went to a grammar school" tells us absolutely nothing about the benefit of grammar schools.
It's just bollocks, as usual.
Your point is you are an ideological leftwing socialist who would deny parents the choice of where to send their children and would nationalise much of industry too given the chance.
Yes indeed comprehensives are better in wealthy areas and the left destroyed the best tools of tackling that for a bright child by abolishing the grammar schools that used to exist in inner cities or ex industrial areas or poor seaside towns. So the only ones left are generally in more prosperous areas with Tory councils where comprehensive schools and academies tend to be better anyway so they are less needed.
So we still have selection in state education, just by house price and vicar's reference, not by IQ
Also, grammar schools do not select by IQ. They select by wealth. Only a fool would try to pretend that wealth does not increase your chances of passing entrance exams by better access to learning materials and private tutors.
No, private schools and the best comprehensive schools select by parental wealth or house price (or church attendance).
Grammar schools select by IQ. If you have a low IQ tutoring will not get you through a grammar school entrance exam, if you have a high IQ you will pass a grammar school entrance exam regardless of tutoring
We have been here before also. Yes it will. You can train for IQ tests unless you are particularly dim. I gave you some examples of stuff you could do last time we had this argument. I could easily raise someone's IQ result with training and I had to administer such test for potential employees for one the large computer companies I used to work for. I guessed I could add 10 - 20 points to someone's test, but later in that discussion @rcs1000 posted a link showing the improvement could be as much as 30 points.
Here is just one of those techniques: If given a sequence of numbers and you have to find the next number and can't see it simply subtract each number from the next number in the sequence and create a new sequence. Repeat until a pattern appears. This can be done in seconds so doesn't waste time and works nearly all the time for sequences in IQ tests.
There are a few particularly dim pupils in some private schools without entrance exams.
There are no particularly dim pupils in grammar schools
There are you know. I taught several when I was teaching in a grammar.
It was not a good place for them. They found keeping up very, very tough.
By particularly dim we mean below average IQ, as I said there are none in grammar schools
Yet another subject about which you clearly know nothing.
But I'll leave it there.
Sorry but you are just not worth it.
Back to someone more interesting ...
Oh I know nothing because I don't accord to your left liberal ideological agenda, well tough I do not care less
Hyufd, it's not that you know nothing. You do know lots of things. Your knowledge of polling is unrivalled. And invaluable.
But at the same time, you do like to pontificate on subjects you don't know much about, and make mistakes as a result. Which isn't illegal. I can think of many posters who would accuse me of doing much the same, quite possibly starting with you (certainly your banned alter ego Justin would). The issue is that you almost never correct mistakes when they're pointed out to you. Which means, you (a) never learn from them and (b) look absolutely ridiculous as a result of your efforts to warp the facts to fit your misconceptions.
As I said before, I didn't find this anything other than irritating when we knew each other in person and I withdrew from your society as a result. Others found it funny. In fact my flatmate (another Simon) got a sort of bizarre pleasure out of trolling you and would frequently regale me, at great length, with your replies.
What's making matters worse for you at the moment is that as a loyal Tory you are trying to defend the truly indefensible even to start.
Just learn some humility. You might even enjoy yourself more.
I share some of your opinions of @HYUFD, in particular an occasional admission of being wrong is something he should consider.
Some of your post however is a bit close to Doxxing, and like many others who use pseudonyms here, something that makes me a bit uncomfortable.
Indeed, I believe Charles has now left us for similar reasons.
Happy for a private message if a connection is made and Ydoethur's comments do not bother me that much but at the end of the day this is a politics site, not a site for going over our life stories
Descending from the important questions in the Header to the nakedly partisan - apols - I wonder how a Sunak/Starmer match-up would play to the country? I haven't quite worked myself out a take on this yet. I do probably need to since he looks nailed on if and when 'it' finally happens.
Starmer's only real appeal is that he is the boring-but-competent one against the charismatic but flawed partygate buffoonery of Boris (being generous to Boris there).
Sunak would essentially occupy the same boring-but-competent territory. Which is bad for Starmer.
Except that one has a modicum of working class background and a trusted profession.
The other is the richest person in Parliament and was a banker. Replace the first letter & you have how most people view them.
lawyer who are almost as unloved as bankers.
Utterly untrue as Mike Smithson demonstrated the other day.
IPSOS MORI (One of your two permitted pollsters):
Other professions trusted by more than half of the public include museum curators, the police, lawyers, civil servants, the ordinary man/woman on the street and clergy/priests. Professions with negative net trust ratings include bankers, local councillors, business leaders, professional footballers, estate agents and journalists.
"If Old Labour had bulldozed Eton in the Seventies then almost everyone's life would be better today." Discuss.
"If Old Labour had not bulldozed most of the Grammar schools in the Sixties and Seventies then almost everyone's life would be better today." Discuss
Apart from the people who didn't get into the grammar schools I presume
No, everyone. The presence of those from the working class in positions of power helps everyone.
Apart from the people who didn't get into the grammar schools
Yep appalling institutions
So appalling they produced the highest number of non privately educated people products in our top professions, yes even judges and lawyers had plenty of grammar school alumni. More so than the number who now come from comprehensives
If you got rid of private schools and grammar schools then 100% of our PMs, people in top professions and judges and lawyers would be from comprehensives. Explain that one.
If you got rid of Waitrose, Marks and Spencer and Sainsburys all their customers would have to shop at Tesco, Aldi or Lidl. Explain that one.
I believe in choice for parents as much as consumers
Let me break it down for you.
1. I don't believe we should abolish existing grammar schools.
2. I don't believe we should abolish private schools.
3. However, if we did, then 100% of our 'elite' would be from comprehensives.
I ask again, explain that one?
If you ban private schools, then the ‘elites’ will send their kids to school abroad - just as the elites of many other countries currently aspire to be able to send their kids to school in the UK.
Only a small minority.
My point is that HY quotes statistics without any appreciation of the other factors at play.
We know that comprehensives are better in rich areas and we know that wealth players a big part in children's prospects, regardless of whether you go to a comprehensive or a grammar school.
Therefore simply saying "ah but X% of our 'elite' went to a grammar school" tells us absolutely nothing about the benefit of grammar schools.
It's just bollocks, as usual.
Your point is you are an ideological leftwing socialist who would deny parents the choice of where to send their children and would nationalise much of industry too given the chance.
Yes indeed comprehensives are better in wealthy areas and the left destroyed the best tools of tackling that for a bright child by abolishing the grammar schools that used to exist in inner cities or ex industrial areas or poor seaside towns. So the only ones left are generally in more prosperous areas with Tory councils where comprehensive schools and academies tend to be better anyway so they are less needed.
So we still have selection in state education, just by house price and vicar's reference, not by IQ
Also, grammar schools do not select by IQ. They select by wealth. Only a fool would try to pretend that wealth does not increase your chances of passing entrance exams by better access to learning materials and private tutors.
No, private schools and the best comprehensive schools select by parental wealth or house price (or church attendance).
Grammar schools select by IQ. If you have a low IQ tutoring will not get you through a grammar school entrance exam, if you have a high IQ you will pass a grammar school entrance exam regardless of tutoring
We have been here before also. Yes it will. You can train for IQ tests unless you are particularly dim. I gave you some examples of stuff you could do last time we had this argument. I could easily raise someone's IQ result with training and I had to administer such test for potential employees for one the large computer companies I used to work for. I guessed I could add 10 - 20 points to someone's test, but later in that discussion @rcs1000 posted a link showing the improvement could be as much as 30 points.
Here is just one of those techniques: If given a sequence of numbers and you have to find the next number and can't see it simply subtract each number from the next number in the sequence and create a new sequence. Repeat until a pattern appears. This can be done in seconds so doesn't waste time and works nearly all the time for sequences in IQ tests.
There are a few particularly dim pupils in some private schools without entrance exams.
There are no particularly dim pupils in grammar schools
There are you know. I taught several when I was teaching in a grammar.
It was not a good place for them. They found keeping up very, very tough.
By particularly dim we mean below average IQ, as I said there are none in grammar schools
Yet another subject about which you clearly know nothing.
But I'll leave it there.
Sorry but you are just not worth it.
Back to someone more interesting ...
Oh I know nothing because I don't accord to your left liberal ideological agenda, well tough I do not care less
Hyufd, it's not that you know nothing. You do know lots of things. Your knowledge of polling is unrivalled. And invaluable.
But at the same time, you do like to pontificate on subjects you don't know much about, and make mistakes as a result. Which isn't illegal. I can think of many posters who would accuse me of doing much the same, quite possibly starting with you (certainly your banned alter ego Justin would). The issue is that you almost never correct mistakes when they're pointed out to you. Which means, you (a) never learn from them and (b) look absolutely ridiculous as a result of your efforts to warp the facts to fit your misconceptions.
As I said before, I didn't find this anything other than irritating when we knew each other in person and I withdrew from your society as a result. Others found it funny. In fact my flatmate (another Simon) got a sort of bizarre pleasure out of trolling you and would frequently regale me, at great length, with your replies.
What's making matters worse for you at the moment is that as a loyal Tory you are trying to defend the truly indefensible even to start.
Just learn some humility. You might even enjoy yourself more.
I share some of your opinions of @HYUFD, in particular an occasional admission of being wrong is something he should consider.
Some of your post however is a bit close to Doxxing, and like many others who use pseudonyms here, something that makes me a bit uncomfortable.
While I can see the force of that argument, the reason I know who he is is because he posted links to his Facebook page. Otherwise I would certainly never have made the connection.
So within the limits I think the identification is fair enough. Nothing I have put would come up on a Google search for his name. Which may be just as well for him...
Descending from the important questions in the Header to the nakedly partisan - apols - I wonder how a Sunak/Starmer match-up would play to the country? I haven't quite worked myself out a take on this yet. I do probably need to since he looks nailed on if and when 'it' finally happens.
Starmer's only real appeal is that he is the boring-but-competent one against the charismatic but flawed partygate buffoonery of Boris (being generous to Boris there).
Sunak would essentially occupy the same boring-but-competent territory. Which is bad for Starmer.
Except that one has a modicum of working class background and a trusted profession.
The other is the richest person in Parliament and was a banker. Replace the first letter & you have how most people view them.
lawyer who are almost as unloved as bankers.
Utterly untrue as Mike Smithson demonstrated the other day.
IPSOS MORI (One of your two permitted pollsters):
Other professions trusted by more than half of the public include museum curators, the police, lawyers, civil servants, the ordinary man/woman on the street and clergy/priests. Professions with negative net trust ratings include bankers, local councillors, business leaders, professional footballers, estate agents and journalists.
"If Old Labour had bulldozed Eton in the Seventies then almost everyone's life would be better today." Discuss.
"If Old Labour had not bulldozed most of the Grammar schools in the Sixties and Seventies then almost everyone's life would be better today." Discuss
Apart from the people who didn't get into the grammar schools I presume
No, everyone. The presence of those from the working class in positions of power helps everyone.
Apart from the people who didn't get into the grammar schools
Yep appalling institutions
So appalling they produced the highest number of non privately educated people products in our top professions, yes even judges and lawyers had plenty of grammar school alumni. More so than the number who now come from comprehensives
If you got rid of private schools and grammar schools then 100% of our PMs, people in top professions and judges and lawyers would be from comprehensives. Explain that one.
If you got rid of Waitrose, Marks and Spencer and Sainsburys all their customers would have to shop at Tesco, Aldi or Lidl. Explain that one.
I believe in choice for parents as much as consumers
Let me break it down for you.
1. I don't believe we should abolish existing grammar schools.
2. I don't believe we should abolish private schools.
3. However, if we did, then 100% of our 'elite' would be from comprehensives.
I ask again, explain that one?
If you ban private schools, then the ‘elites’ will send their kids to school abroad - just as the elites of many other countries currently aspire to be able to send their kids to school in the UK.
Only a small minority.
My point is that HY quotes statistics without any appreciation of the other factors at play.
We know that comprehensives are better in rich areas and we know that wealth players a big part in children's prospects, regardless of whether you go to a comprehensive or a grammar school.
Therefore simply saying "ah but X% of our 'elite' went to a grammar school" tells us absolutely nothing about the benefit of grammar schools.
It's just bollocks, as usual.
Your point is you are an ideological leftwing socialist who would deny parents the choice of where to send their children and would nationalise much of industry too given the chance.
Yes indeed comprehensives are better in wealthy areas and the left destroyed the best tools of tackling that for a bright child by abolishing the grammar schools that used to exist in inner cities or ex industrial areas or poor seaside towns. So the only ones left are generally in more prosperous areas with Tory councils where comprehensive schools and academies tend to be better anyway so they are less needed.
So we still have selection in state education, just by house price and vicar's reference, not by IQ
Also, grammar schools do not select by IQ. They select by wealth. Only a fool would try to pretend that wealth does not increase your chances of passing entrance exams by better access to learning materials and private tutors.
No, private schools and the best comprehensive schools select by parental wealth or house price (or church attendance).
Grammar schools select by IQ. If you have a low IQ tutoring will not get you through a grammar school entrance exam, if you have a high IQ you will pass a grammar school entrance exam regardless of tutoring
We have been here before also. Yes it will. You can train for IQ tests unless you are particularly dim. I gave you some examples of stuff you could do last time we had this argument. I could easily raise someone's IQ result with training and I had to administer such test for potential employees for one the large computer companies I used to work for. I guessed I could add 10 - 20 points to someone's test, but later in that discussion @rcs1000 posted a link showing the improvement could be as much as 30 points.
Here is just one of those techniques: If given a sequence of numbers and you have to find the next number and can't see it simply subtract each number from the next number in the sequence and create a new sequence. Repeat until a pattern appears. This can be done in seconds so doesn't waste time and works nearly all the time for sequences in IQ tests.
There are a few particularly dim pupils in some private schools without entrance exams.
There are no particularly dim pupils in grammar schools
There are you know. I taught several when I was teaching in a grammar.
It was not a good place for them. They found keeping up very, very tough.
By particularly dim we mean below average IQ, as I said there are none in grammar schools
Yet another subject about which you clearly know nothing.
But I'll leave it there.
Sorry but you are just not worth it.
Back to someone more interesting ...
Oh I know nothing because I don't accord to your left liberal ideological agenda, well tough I do not care less
Hyufd, it's not that you know nothing. You do know lots of things. Your knowledge of polling is unrivalled. And invaluable.
But at the same time, you do like to pontificate on subjects you don't know much about, and make mistakes as a result. Which isn't illegal. I can think of many posters who would accuse me of doing much the same, quite possibly starting with you (certainly your banned alter ego Justin would). The issue is that you almost never correct mistakes when they're pointed out to you. Which means, you (a) never learn from them and (b) look absolutely ridiculous as a result of your efforts to warp the facts to fit your misconceptions.
As I said before, I didn't find this anything other than irritating when we knew each other in person and I withdrew from your society as a result. Others found it funny. In fact my flatmate (another Simon) got a sort of bizarre pleasure out of trolling you and would frequently regale me, at great length, with your replies.
What's making matters worse for you at the moment is that as a loyal Tory you are trying to defend the truly indefensible even to start.
Just learn some humility. You might even enjoy yourself more.
I share some of your opinions of @HYUFD, in particular an occasional admission of being wrong is something he should consider.
Some of your post however is a bit close to Doxxing, and like many others who use pseudonyms here, something that makes me a bit uncomfortable.
I think @HYUFD has disclosed his identity on the board before, no?
"If Old Labour had bulldozed Eton in the Seventies then almost everyone's life would be better today." Discuss.
"If Old Labour had not bulldozed most of the Grammar schools in the Sixties and Seventies then almost everyone's life would be better today." Discuss
Not if you went to a secondary modern.
Didn't do IDS and John Prescott or Patrick Stewart much harm
Some people who get run over by cars make a full recovery and also go on to live long and successful lives.
Therefore getting run over by a car is obviously no big deal.
Whence derives this meme that IDS went to secondary modern? He was educated (not to be pedantic about it) at HMS Conway, an independent naval training academy. I played rugby against them at a tender age and Charles Booth's taxonomic label 'vicious and semi-criminal' springs immediately to mind.
Descending from the important questions in the Header to the nakedly partisan - apols - I wonder how a Sunak/Starmer match-up would play to the country? I haven't quite worked myself out a take on this yet. I do probably need to since he looks nailed on if and when 'it' finally happens.
Starmer's only real appeal is that he is the boring-but-competent one against the charismatic but flawed partygate buffoonery of Boris (being generous to Boris there).
Sunak would essentially occupy the same boring-but-competent territory. Which is bad for Starmer.
Except that one has a modicum of working class background and a trusted profession.
The other is the richest person in Parliament and was a banker. Replace the first letter & you have how most people view them.
lawyer who are almost as unloved as bankers.
Utterly untrue as Mike Smithson demonstrated the other day.
IPSOS MORI (One of your two permitted pollsters):
Other professions trusted by more than half of the public include museum curators, the police, lawyers, civil servants, the ordinary man/woman on the street and clergy/priests. Professions with negative net trust ratings include bankers, local councillors, business leaders, professional footballers, estate agents and journalists.
"If Old Labour had bulldozed Eton in the Seventies then almost everyone's life would be better today." Discuss.
"If Old Labour had not bulldozed most of the Grammar schools in the Sixties and Seventies then almost everyone's life would be better today." Discuss
Apart from the people who didn't get into the grammar schools I presume
No, everyone. The presence of those from the working class in positions of power helps everyone.
Apart from the people who didn't get into the grammar schools
Yep appalling institutions
So appalling they produced the highest number of non privately educated people products in our top professions, yes even judges and lawyers had plenty of grammar school alumni. More so than the number who now come from comprehensives
If you got rid of private schools and grammar schools then 100% of our PMs, people in top professions and judges and lawyers would be from comprehensives. Explain that one.
If you got rid of Waitrose, Marks and Spencer and Sainsburys all their customers would have to shop at Tesco, Aldi or Lidl. Explain that one.
I believe in choice for parents as much as consumers
Let me break it down for you.
1. I don't believe we should abolish existing grammar schools.
2. I don't believe we should abolish private schools.
3. However, if we did, then 100% of our 'elite' would be from comprehensives.
I ask again, explain that one?
If you ban private schools, then the ‘elites’ will send their kids to school abroad - just as the elites of many other countries currently aspire to be able to send their kids to school in the UK.
Only a small minority.
My point is that HY quotes statistics without any appreciation of the other factors at play.
We know that comprehensives are better in rich areas and we know that wealth players a big part in children's prospects, regardless of whether you go to a comprehensive or a grammar school.
Therefore simply saying "ah but X% of our 'elite' went to a grammar school" tells us absolutely nothing about the benefit of grammar schools.
It's just bollocks, as usual.
Your point is you are an ideological leftwing socialist who would deny parents the choice of where to send their children and would nationalise much of industry too given the chance.
Yes indeed comprehensives are better in wealthy areas and the left destroyed the best tools of tackling that for a bright child by abolishing the grammar schools that used to exist in inner cities or ex industrial areas or poor seaside towns. So the only ones left are generally in more prosperous areas with Tory councils where comprehensive schools and academies tend to be better anyway so they are less needed.
So we still have selection in state education, just by house price and vicar's reference, not by IQ
Also, grammar schools do not select by IQ. They select by wealth. Only a fool would try to pretend that wealth does not increase your chances of passing entrance exams by better access to learning materials and private tutors.
No, private schools and the best comprehensive schools select by parental wealth or house price (or church attendance).
Grammar schools select by IQ. If you have a low IQ tutoring will not get you through a grammar school entrance exam, if you have a high IQ you will pass a grammar school entrance exam regardless of tutoring
We have been here before also. Yes it will. You can train for IQ tests unless you are particularly dim. I gave you some examples of stuff you could do last time we had this argument. I could easily raise someone's IQ result with training and I had to administer such test for potential employees for one the large computer companies I used to work for. I guessed I could add 10 - 20 points to someone's test, but later in that discussion @rcs1000 posted a link showing the improvement could be as much as 30 points.
Here is just one of those techniques: If given a sequence of numbers and you have to find the next number and can't see it simply subtract each number from the next number in the sequence and create a new sequence. Repeat until a pattern appears. This can be done in seconds so doesn't waste time and works nearly all the time for sequences in IQ tests.
There are a few particularly dim pupils in some private schools without entrance exams.
There are no particularly dim pupils in grammar schools
There are you know. I taught several when I was teaching in a grammar.
It was not a good place for them. They found keeping up very, very tough.
By particularly dim we mean below average IQ, as I said there are none in grammar schools
Yet another subject about which you clearly know nothing.
But I'll leave it there.
Sorry but you are just not worth it.
Back to someone more interesting ...
Oh I know nothing because I don't accord to your left liberal ideological agenda, well tough I do not care less
Hyufd, it's not that you know nothing. You do know lots of things. Your knowledge of polling is unrivalled. And invaluable.
But at the same time, you do like to pontificate on subjects you don't know much about, and make mistakes as a result. Which isn't illegal. I can think of many posters who would accuse me of doing much the same, quite possibly starting with you (certainly your banned alter ego Justin would). The issue is that you almost never correct mistakes when they're pointed out to you. Which means, you (a) never learn from them and (b) look absolutely ridiculous as a result of your efforts to warp the facts to fit your misconceptions.
As I said before, I didn't find this anything other than irritating when we knew each other in person and I withdrew from your society as a result. Others found it funny. In fact my flatmate (another Simon) got a sort of bizarre pleasure out of trolling you and would frequently regale me, at great length, with your replies.
What's making matters worse for you at the moment is that as a loyal Tory you are trying to defend the truly indefensible even to start.
Just learn some humility. You might even enjoy yourself more.
I share some of your opinions of @HYUFD, in particular an occasional admission of being wrong is something he should consider.
Some of your post however is a bit close to Doxxing, and like many others who use pseudonyms here, something that makes me a bit uncomfortable.
I think @HYUFD has disclosed his identity on the board before, no?
A few things but not fully.
Charles we know was identified against his will and has sadly now departed the site (albeit Charles is a rather higher profile figure than me)
Descending from the important questions in the Header to the nakedly partisan - apols - I wonder how a Sunak/Starmer match-up would play to the country? I haven't quite worked myself out a take on this yet. I do probably need to since he looks nailed on if and when 'it' finally happens.
Starmer's only real appeal is that he is the boring-but-competent one against the charismatic but flawed partygate buffoonery of Boris (being generous to Boris there).
Sunak would essentially occupy the same boring-but-competent territory. Which is bad for Starmer.
Except that one has a modicum of working class background and a trusted profession.
The other is the richest person in Parliament and was a banker. Replace the first letter & you have how most people view them.
lawyer who are almost as unloved as bankers.
Utterly untrue as Mike Smithson demonstrated the other day.
IPSOS MORI (One of your two permitted pollsters):
Other professions trusted by more than half of the public include museum curators, the police, lawyers, civil servants, the ordinary man/woman on the street and clergy/priests. Professions with negative net trust ratings include bankers, local councillors, business leaders, professional footballers, estate agents and journalists.
"If Old Labour had bulldozed Eton in the Seventies then almost everyone's life would be better today." Discuss.
"If Old Labour had not bulldozed most of the Grammar schools in the Sixties and Seventies then almost everyone's life would be better today." Discuss
Apart from the people who didn't get into the grammar schools I presume
No, everyone. The presence of those from the working class in positions of power helps everyone.
Apart from the people who didn't get into the grammar schools
Yep appalling institutions
So appalling they produced the highest number of non privately educated people products in our top professions, yes even judges and lawyers had plenty of grammar school alumni. More so than the number who now come from comprehensives
If you got rid of private schools and grammar schools then 100% of our PMs, people in top professions and judges and lawyers would be from comprehensives. Explain that one.
If you got rid of Waitrose, Marks and Spencer and Sainsburys all their customers would have to shop at Tesco, Aldi or Lidl. Explain that one.
I believe in choice for parents as much as consumers
Let me break it down for you.
1. I don't believe we should abolish existing grammar schools.
2. I don't believe we should abolish private schools.
3. However, if we did, then 100% of our 'elite' would be from comprehensives.
I ask again, explain that one?
If you ban private schools, then the ‘elites’ will send their kids to school abroad - just as the elites of many other countries currently aspire to be able to send their kids to school in the UK.
Only a small minority.
My point is that HY quotes statistics without any appreciation of the other factors at play.
We know that comprehensives are better in rich areas and we know that wealth players a big part in children's prospects, regardless of whether you go to a comprehensive or a grammar school.
Therefore simply saying "ah but X% of our 'elite' went to a grammar school" tells us absolutely nothing about the benefit of grammar schools.
It's just bollocks, as usual.
Your point is you are an ideological leftwing socialist who would deny parents the choice of where to send their children and would nationalise much of industry too given the chance.
Yes indeed comprehensives are better in wealthy areas and the left destroyed the best tools of tackling that for a bright child by abolishing the grammar schools that used to exist in inner cities or ex industrial areas or poor seaside towns. So the only ones left are generally in more prosperous areas with Tory councils where comprehensive schools and academies tend to be better anyway so they are less needed.
So we still have selection in state education, just by house price and vicar's reference, not by IQ
Also, grammar schools do not select by IQ. They select by wealth. Only a fool would try to pretend that wealth does not increase your chances of passing entrance exams by better access to learning materials and private tutors.
No, private schools and the best comprehensive schools select by parental wealth or house price (or church attendance).
Grammar schools select by IQ. If you have a low IQ tutoring will not get you through a grammar school entrance exam, if you have a high IQ you will pass a grammar school entrance exam regardless of tutoring
We have been here before also. Yes it will. You can train for IQ tests unless you are particularly dim. I gave you some examples of stuff you could do last time we had this argument. I could easily raise someone's IQ result with training and I had to administer such test for potential employees for one the large computer companies I used to work for. I guessed I could add 10 - 20 points to someone's test, but later in that discussion @rcs1000 posted a link showing the improvement could be as much as 30 points.
Here is just one of those techniques: If given a sequence of numbers and you have to find the next number and can't see it simply subtract each number from the next number in the sequence and create a new sequence. Repeat until a pattern appears. This can be done in seconds so doesn't waste time and works nearly all the time for sequences in IQ tests.
There are a few particularly dim pupils in some private schools without entrance exams.
There are no particularly dim pupils in grammar schools
There are you know. I taught several when I was teaching in a grammar.
It was not a good place for them. They found keeping up very, very tough.
By particularly dim we mean below average IQ, as I said there are none in grammar schools
Yet another subject about which you clearly know nothing.
But I'll leave it there.
Sorry but you are just not worth it.
Back to someone more interesting ...
Oh I know nothing because I don't accord to your left liberal ideological agenda, well tough I do not care less
Hyufd, it's not that you know nothing. You do know lots of things. Your knowledge of polling is unrivalled. And invaluable.
But at the same time, you do like to pontificate on subjects you don't know much about, and make mistakes as a result. Which isn't illegal. I can think of many posters who would accuse me of doing much the same, quite possibly starting with you (certainly your banned alter ego Justin would). The issue is that you almost never correct mistakes when they're pointed out to you. Which means, you (a) never learn from them and (b) look absolutely ridiculous as a result of your efforts to warp the facts to fit your misconceptions.
As I said before, I didn't find this anything other than irritating when we knew each other in person and I withdrew from your society as a result. Others found it funny. In fact my flatmate (another Simon) got a sort of bizarre pleasure out of trolling you and would frequently regale me, at great length, with your replies.
What's making matters worse for you at the moment is that as a loyal Tory you are trying to defend the truly indefensible even to start.
Just learn some humility. You might even enjoy yourself more.
Except normally humility is a cue for accept the left liberal consensus on x issue, here grammar schools it may be something else because we have extracted one data point we will use to push our point of view.
Which I will not do.
I cannot work out precisely what society you are talking about, I was involved in hiking at Aberystwyth and was a member of the Conservative Society but never its chairman or even on its committee (although I was chairman of the Conservative group when I was at Warwick)
Well, if it helps, it was the Walking Club.
I hadn't made the connection until fairly recently.
ETA Incidentally by 'withdrawing from your society' I meant 'stopped talking to you,' not left the walking club!
Fine but it was never my society, I was only a member of it
Not grammar schools again, please. The only place I ever come across nostalgia for grammar schools is on PB. They are the past, not the future. Even the Tory Party has shut up about them (apart from in Epping).
UKIP wanted a "grammar school in every town". No other party is interested. Tells you all you need to know. And why? Because the evidence (educational and social mobility) that they do more harm than good is incontrovertible. Trust me.
Not sure why you'd expect anyone to 'trust you', and this post is a collection of sloppy empty clichés, of which 'they are the past not the future' is the emptiest.
Thanks for the rudeness. I've spent the last forty years working in education and educational policy, much of it on data analysis, at a high level. So while I'm pretty ignorant about much, I think I know about this. And guess what? The Tory party doesn't advocate the return of a tertiary system of secondary education.
Any time. I am sure that you have a great deal of knowledge on the subject, but you claimed 'incontrevertible evidence' that grammar schools have done more harm than good. If you have such evidence, why not present it?
The problem with grammar schools is not the grammar schools. Grammar schools, by and large, do a great job of educating kids. The 25% of kids who get into grammar schools do better than the top 25% of kids in comprehensives.
The problem is that the educational outcomes of the people who end up at the secondary moderns is significantly worse than if they had been to comprehensive schools.
And I would argue that the educational system in the UK's big problem for a very long time has been a lack of focus on the 75% of kids who probably shouldn't be going to university. It's ensuring - as they do in Switzerland or Germany - that they get the right skills to succeed.
The grammar discussion is the wrong one. It's a myopic focus on kids who are mostly going to do fine anyway. When the people we should worrying about aren't the people getting good GCSEs and A-Levels.
I'm not sure that the top 25% in the most deprived areas are going to do fine.
So I can see the point of grammar schools in the likes of Knowsley or Hull.
Descending from the important questions in the Header to the nakedly partisan - apols - I wonder how a Sunak/Starmer match-up would play to the country? I haven't quite worked myself out a take on this yet. I do probably need to since he looks nailed on if and when 'it' finally happens.
Starmer's only real appeal is that he is the boring-but-competent one against the charismatic but flawed partygate buffoonery of Boris (being generous to Boris there).
Sunak would essentially occupy the same boring-but-competent territory. Which is bad for Starmer.
Except that one has a modicum of working class background and a trusted profession.
The other is the richest person in Parliament and was a banker. Replace the first letter & you have how most people view them.
lawyer who are almost as unloved as bankers.
Utterly untrue as Mike Smithson demonstrated the other day.
IPSOS MORI (One of your two permitted pollsters):
Other professions trusted by more than half of the public include museum curators, the police, lawyers, civil servants, the ordinary man/woman on the street and clergy/priests. Professions with negative net trust ratings include bankers, local councillors, business leaders, professional footballers, estate agents and journalists.
"If Old Labour had bulldozed Eton in the Seventies then almost everyone's life would be better today." Discuss.
"If Old Labour had not bulldozed most of the Grammar schools in the Sixties and Seventies then almost everyone's life would be better today." Discuss
Apart from the people who didn't get into the grammar schools I presume
No, everyone. The presence of those from the working class in positions of power helps everyone.
Apart from the people who didn't get into the grammar schools
Yep appalling institutions
So appalling they produced the highest number of non privately educated people products in our top professions, yes even judges and lawyers had plenty of grammar school alumni. More so than the number who now come from comprehensives
If you got rid of private schools and grammar schools then 100% of our PMs, people in top professions and judges and lawyers would be from comprehensives. Explain that one.
If you got rid of Waitrose, Marks and Spencer and Sainsburys all their customers would have to shop at Tesco, Aldi or Lidl. Explain that one.
I believe in choice for parents as much as consumers
Let me break it down for you.
1. I don't believe we should abolish existing grammar schools.
2. I don't believe we should abolish private schools.
3. However, if we did, then 100% of our 'elite' would be from comprehensives.
I ask again, explain that one?
If you ban private schools, then the ‘elites’ will send their kids to school abroad - just as the elites of many other countries currently aspire to be able to send their kids to school in the UK.
Only a small minority.
My point is that HY quotes statistics without any appreciation of the other factors at play.
We know that comprehensives are better in rich areas and we know that wealth players a big part in children's prospects, regardless of whether you go to a comprehensive or a grammar school.
Therefore simply saying "ah but X% of our 'elite' went to a grammar school" tells us absolutely nothing about the benefit of grammar schools.
It's just bollocks, as usual.
Your point is you are an ideological leftwing socialist who would deny parents the choice of where to send their children and would nationalise much of industry too given the chance.
Yes indeed comprehensives are better in wealthy areas and the left destroyed the best tools of tackling that for a bright child by abolishing the grammar schools that used to exist in inner cities or ex industrial areas or poor seaside towns. So the only ones left are generally in more prosperous areas with Tory councils where comprehensive schools and academies tend to be better anyway so they are less needed.
So we still have selection in state education, just by house price and vicar's reference, not by IQ
Also, grammar schools do not select by IQ. They select by wealth. Only a fool would try to pretend that wealth does not increase your chances of passing entrance exams by better access to learning materials and private tutors.
No, private schools and the best comprehensive schools select by parental wealth or house price (or church attendance).
Grammar schools select by IQ. If you have a low IQ tutoring will not get you through a grammar school entrance exam, if you have a high IQ you will pass a grammar school entrance exam regardless of tutoring
We have been here before also. Yes it will. You can train for IQ tests unless you are particularly dim. I gave you some examples of stuff you could do last time we had this argument. I could easily raise someone's IQ result with training and I had to administer such test for potential employees for one the large computer companies I used to work for. I guessed I could add 10 - 20 points to someone's test, but later in that discussion @rcs1000 posted a link showing the improvement could be as much as 30 points.
Here is just one of those techniques: If given a sequence of numbers and you have to find the next number and can't see it simply subtract each number from the next number in the sequence and create a new sequence. Repeat until a pattern appears. This can be done in seconds so doesn't waste time and works nearly all the time for sequences in IQ tests.
There are a few particularly dim pupils in some private schools without entrance exams.
There are no particularly dim pupils in grammar schools
There are you know. I taught several when I was teaching in a grammar.
It was not a good place for them. They found keeping up very, very tough.
By particularly dim we mean below average IQ, as I said there are none in grammar schools
Yet another subject about which you clearly know nothing.
But I'll leave it there.
Sorry but you are just not worth it.
Back to someone more interesting ...
Oh I know nothing because I don't accord to your left liberal ideological agenda, well tough I do not care less
Hyufd, it's not that you know nothing. You do know lots of things. Your knowledge of polling is unrivalled. And invaluable.
But at the same time, you do like to pontificate on subjects you don't know much about, and make mistakes as a result. Which isn't illegal. I can think of many posters who would accuse me of doing much the same, quite possibly starting with you (certainly your banned alter ego Justin would). The issue is that you almost never correct mistakes when they're pointed out to you. Which means, you (a) never learn from them and (b) look absolutely ridiculous as a result of your efforts to warp the facts to fit your misconceptions.
As I said before, I didn't find this anything other than irritating when we knew each other in person and I withdrew from your society as a result. Others found it funny. In fact my flatmate (another Simon) got a sort of bizarre pleasure out of trolling you and would frequently regale me, at great length, with your replies.
What's making matters worse for you at the moment is that as a loyal Tory you are trying to defend the truly indefensible even to start.
Just learn some humility. You might even enjoy yourself more.
Except normally humility is a cue for accept the left liberal consensus on x issue, here grammar schools it may be something else because we have extracted one data point we will use to push our point of view.
Which I will not do.
I cannot work out precisely what society you are talking about, I was involved in hiking at Aberystwyth and was a member of the Conservative Society but never its chairman or even on its committee (although I was chairman of the Conservative group when I was at Warwick)
No, humility is accepting that you are from time-to-time wrong.
I'm wrong all the time.
I love it when the people I work with prove me wrong, because that means I've learned something.
The fact that you think that sometimes admitting you're wrong is a "lefty liberal" plot is weird beyond belief.
A month or so ago, I had a big argument with @Leon about Wuhan. And you know what, he was right, and I was wrong. And I said 'you know what, you're absolutely right'. Of course, he's a famous lefty liberal, so I guess that just proves your point.
Yes but you are not a member of a political party, unlike me.
I am, part of the reason I come here is to improve my arguments for the conservative cases I believe in
"If Old Labour had bulldozed Eton in the Seventies then almost everyone's life would be better today." Discuss.
"If Old Labour had not bulldozed most of the Grammar schools in the Sixties and Seventies then almost everyone's life would be better today." Discuss
Not if you went to a secondary modern.
Didn't do IDS and John Prescott or Patrick Stewart much harm
Some people who get run over by cars make a full recovery and also go on to live long and successful lives.
Therefore getting run over by a car is obviously no big deal.
Whence derives this meme that IDS went to secondary modern? He was educated (not to be pedantic about it) at HMS Conway, an independent naval training academy. I played rugby against them at a tender age and Charles Booth's taxonomic label 'vicious and semi-criminal' springs immediately to mind.
As I vaguely recall, wasn’t he caught out in some CV trying to claim that he went to Oxbridge?
Edit/ - correction - he claimed he had been educated at the University of Perugia, but it turned out he had simply attended a language school there.
Not grammar schools again, please. The only place I ever come across nostalgia for grammar schools is on PB. They are the past, not the future. Even the Tory Party has shut up about them (apart from in Epping).
UKIP wanted a "grammar school in every town". No other party is interested. Tells you all you need to know. And why? Because the evidence (educational and social mobility) that they do more harm than good is incontrovertible. Trust me.
Not sure why you'd expect anyone to 'trust you', and this post is a collection of sloppy empty clichés, of which 'they are the past not the future' is the emptiest.
Thanks for the rudeness. I've spent the last forty years working in education and educational policy, much of it on data analysis, at a high level. So while I'm pretty ignorant about much, I think I know about this. And guess what? The Tory party doesn't advocate the return of a tertiary system of secondary education.
Any time. I am sure that you have a great deal of knowledge on the subject, but you claimed 'incontrevertible evidence' that grammar schools have done more harm than good. If you have such evidence, why not present it?
Disadvantaged kids do worse in Kent than elsewhere in England, because they end up going to Secondary Moderns, and it's blooming hard to make Secondary Modern Schools work.
Ignoring Trafford, Bucks etc which are fully selective and have above average GCSE results across the board, including in their high schools
But that's because of the social composition of Bucks and Trafford, not because they have grammar schools. Their primary schools do very well, before selection at 11. Guess why? Social class.
Not grammar schools again, please. The only place I ever come across nostalgia for grammar schools is on PB. They are the past, not the future. Even the Tory Party has shut up about them (apart from in Epping).
UKIP wanted a "grammar school in every town". No other party is interested. Tells you all you need to know. And why? Because the evidence (educational and social mobility) that they do more harm than good is incontrovertible. Trust me.
Not sure why you'd expect anyone to 'trust you', and this post is a collection of sloppy empty clichés, of which 'they are the past not the future' is the emptiest.
Thanks for the rudeness. I've spent the last forty years working in education and educational policy, much of it on data analysis, at a high level. So while I'm pretty ignorant about much, I think I know about this. And guess what? The Tory party doesn't advocate the return of a tertiary system of secondary education.
Any time. I am sure that you have a great deal of knowledge on the subject, but you claimed 'incontrevertible evidence' that grammar schools have done more harm than good. If you have such evidence, why not present it?
Disadvantaged kids do worse in Kent than elsewhere in England, because they end up going to Secondary Moderns, and it's blooming hard to make Secondary Modern Schools work.
Ignoring Trafford, Bucks etc which are fully selective and have above average GCSE results across the board, including in their high schools
But that's because of the social composition of Bucks and Trafford, not because they have grammar schools. Their primary schools do very well, before selection at 11. Guess why? Social class.
No, because we are in Trafford we are in the happy position of having a comparator borough with a very similar socio-economic mix: Stockport. And (at least when we looked at this in excrutiating detail 12 years ago when choosing a place to live) Trafford did considerably better than Stockport pretty much every way you slice it.
As I say, I am agnostic on grammar schools. But the success of schools in Trafford is down to far more than just social class.
Descending from the important questions in the Header to the nakedly partisan - apols - I wonder how a Sunak/Starmer match-up would play to the country? I haven't quite worked myself out a take on this yet. I do probably need to since he looks nailed on if and when 'it' finally happens.
Starmer's only real appeal is that he is the boring-but-competent one against the charismatic but flawed partygate buffoonery of Boris (being generous to Boris there).
Sunak would essentially occupy the same boring-but-competent territory. Which is bad for Starmer.
Except that one has a modicum of working class background and a trusted profession.
The other is the richest person in Parliament and was a banker. Replace the first letter & you have how most people view them.
lawyer who are almost as unloved as bankers.
Utterly untrue as Mike Smithson demonstrated the other day.
IPSOS MORI (One of your two permitted pollsters):
Other professions trusted by more than half of the public include museum curators, the police, lawyers, civil servants, the ordinary man/woman on the street and clergy/priests. Professions with negative net trust ratings include bankers, local councillors, business leaders, professional footballers, estate agents and journalists.
"If Old Labour had bulldozed Eton in the Seventies then almost everyone's life would be better today." Discuss.
"If Old Labour had not bulldozed most of the Grammar schools in the Sixties and Seventies then almost everyone's life would be better today." Discuss
Apart from the people who didn't get into the grammar schools I presume
No, everyone. The presence of those from the working class in positions of power helps everyone.
Apart from the people who didn't get into the grammar schools
Yep appalling institutions
So appalling they produced the highest number of non privately educated people products in our top professions, yes even judges and lawyers had plenty of grammar school alumni. More so than the number who now come from comprehensives
If you got rid of private schools and grammar schools then 100% of our PMs, people in top professions and judges and lawyers would be from comprehensives. Explain that one.
If you got rid of Waitrose, Marks and Spencer and Sainsburys all their customers would have to shop at Tesco, Aldi or Lidl. Explain that one.
I believe in choice for parents as much as consumers
Let me break it down for you.
1. I don't believe we should abolish existing grammar schools.
2. I don't believe we should abolish private schools.
3. However, if we did, then 100% of our 'elite' would be from comprehensives.
I ask again, explain that one?
If you ban private schools, then the ‘elites’ will send their kids to school abroad - just as the elites of many other countries currently aspire to be able to send their kids to school in the UK.
Only a small minority.
My point is that HY quotes statistics without any appreciation of the other factors at play.
We know that comprehensives are better in rich areas and we know that wealth players a big part in children's prospects, regardless of whether you go to a comprehensive or a grammar school.
Therefore simply saying "ah but X% of our 'elite' went to a grammar school" tells us absolutely nothing about the benefit of grammar schools.
It's just bollocks, as usual.
Your point is you are an ideological leftwing socialist who would deny parents the choice of where to send their children and would nationalise much of industry too given the chance.
Yes indeed comprehensives are better in wealthy areas and the left destroyed the best tools of tackling that for a bright child by abolishing the grammar schools that used to exist in inner cities or ex industrial areas or poor seaside towns. So the only ones left are generally in more prosperous areas with Tory councils where comprehensive schools and academies tend to be better anyway so they are less needed.
So we still have selection in state education, just by house price and vicar's reference, not by IQ
Also, grammar schools do not select by IQ. They select by wealth. Only a fool would try to pretend that wealth does not increase your chances of passing entrance exams by better access to learning materials and private tutors.
No, private schools and the best comprehensive schools select by parental wealth or house price (or church attendance).
Grammar schools select by IQ. If you have a low IQ tutoring will not get you through a grammar school entrance exam, if you have a high IQ you will pass a grammar school entrance exam regardless of tutoring
We have been here before also. Yes it will. You can train for IQ tests unless you are particularly dim. I gave you some examples of stuff you could do last time we had this argument. I could easily raise someone's IQ result with training and I had to administer such test for potential employees for one the large computer companies I used to work for. I guessed I could add 10 - 20 points to someone's test, but later in that discussion @rcs1000 posted a link showing the improvement could be as much as 30 points.
Here is just one of those techniques: If given a sequence of numbers and you have to find the next number and can't see it simply subtract each number from the next number in the sequence and create a new sequence. Repeat until a pattern appears. This can be done in seconds so doesn't waste time and works nearly all the time for sequences in IQ tests.
There are a few particularly dim pupils in some private schools without entrance exams.
There are no particularly dim pupils in grammar schools
There are you know. I taught several when I was teaching in a grammar.
It was not a good place for them. They found keeping up very, very tough.
By particularly dim we mean below average IQ, as I said there are none in grammar schools
Yet another subject about which you clearly know nothing.
But I'll leave it there.
Sorry but you are just not worth it.
Back to someone more interesting ...
Oh I know nothing because I don't accord to your left liberal ideological agenda, well tough I do not care less
Hyufd, it's not that you know nothing. You do know lots of things. Your knowledge of polling is unrivalled. And invaluable.
But at the same time, you do like to pontificate on subjects you don't know much about, and make mistakes as a result. Which isn't illegal. I can think of many posters who would accuse me of doing much the same, quite possibly starting with you (certainly your banned alter ego Justin would). The issue is that you almost never correct mistakes when they're pointed out to you. Which means, you (a) never learn from them and (b) look absolutely ridiculous as a result of your efforts to warp the facts to fit your misconceptions.
As I said before, I didn't find this anything other than irritating when we knew each other in person and I withdrew from your society as a result. Others found it funny. In fact my flatmate (another Simon) got a sort of bizarre pleasure out of trolling you and would frequently regale me, at great length, with your replies.
What's making matters worse for you at the moment is that as a loyal Tory you are trying to defend the truly indefensible even to start.
Just learn some humility. You might even enjoy yourself more.
I share some of your opinions of @HYUFD, in particular an occasional admission of being wrong is something he should consider.
Some of your post however is a bit close to Doxxing, and like many others who use pseudonyms here, something that makes me a bit uncomfortable.
I think @HYUFD has disclosed his identity on the board before, no?
A lot of the pseudonymised posters, including myself, scatter enough through their posts that they are not truly anonymous, but do find a bit of cloaking useful.
Not grammar schools again, please. The only place I ever come across nostalgia for grammar schools is on PB. They are the past, not the future. Even the Tory Party has shut up about them (apart from in Epping).
UKIP wanted a "grammar school in every town". No other party is interested. Tells you all you need to know. And why? Because the evidence (educational and social mobility) that they do more harm than good is incontrovertible. Trust me.
Not sure why you'd expect anyone to 'trust you', and this post is a collection of sloppy empty clichés, of which 'they are the past not the future' is the emptiest.
Thanks for the rudeness. I've spent the last forty years working in education and educational policy, much of it on data analysis, at a high level. So while I'm pretty ignorant about much, I think I know about this. And guess what? The Tory party doesn't advocate the return of a tertiary system of secondary education.
Any time. I am sure that you have a great deal of knowledge on the subject, but you claimed 'incontrevertible evidence' that grammar schools have done more harm than good. If you have such evidence, why not present it?
The problem with grammar schools is not the grammar schools. Grammar schools, by and large, do a great job of educating kids. The 25% of kids who get into grammar schools do better than the top 25% of kids in comprehensives.
The problem is that the educational outcomes of the people who end up at the secondary moderns is significantly worse than if they had been to comprehensive schools.
And I would argue that the educational system in the UK's big problem for a very long time has been a lack of focus on the 75% of kids who probably shouldn't be going to university. It's ensuring - as they do in Switzerland or Germany - that they get the right skills to succeed.
The grammar discussion is the wrong one. It's a myopic focus on kids who are mostly going to do fine anyway. When the people we should worrying about aren't the people getting good GCSEs and A-Levels.
I care about the people who would have done well at grammar schools but don't at comprehensive schools (for various reasons).
"If Old Labour had bulldozed Eton in the Seventies then almost everyone's life would be better today." Discuss.
"If Old Labour had not bulldozed most of the Grammar schools in the Sixties and Seventies then almost everyone's life would be better today." Discuss
Not if you went to a secondary modern.
Didn't do IDS and John Prescott or Patrick Stewart much harm
Some people who get run over by cars make a full recovery and also go on to live long and successful lives.
Therefore getting run over by a car is obviously no big deal.
Whence derives this meme that IDS went to secondary modern? He was educated (not to be pedantic about it) at HMS Conway, an independent naval training academy. I played rugby against them at a tender age and Charles Booth's taxonomic label 'vicious and semi-criminal' springs immediately to mind.
As I vaguely recall, wasn’t he caught out in some CV trying to claim that he went to Oxbridge?
Descending from the important questions in the Header to the nakedly partisan - apols - I wonder how a Sunak/Starmer match-up would play to the country? I haven't quite worked myself out a take on this yet. I do probably need to since he looks nailed on if and when 'it' finally happens.
Starmer's only real appeal is that he is the boring-but-competent one against the charismatic but flawed partygate buffoonery of Boris (being generous to Boris there).
Sunak would essentially occupy the same boring-but-competent territory. Which is bad for Starmer.
Except that one has a modicum of working class background and a trusted profession.
The other is the richest person in Parliament and was a banker. Replace the first letter & you have how most people view them.
lawyer who are almost as unloved as bankers.
Utterly untrue as Mike Smithson demonstrated the other day.
IPSOS MORI (One of your two permitted pollsters):
Other professions trusted by more than half of the public include museum curators, the police, lawyers, civil servants, the ordinary man/woman on the street and clergy/priests. Professions with negative net trust ratings include bankers, local councillors, business leaders, professional footballers, estate agents and journalists.
"If Old Labour had bulldozed Eton in the Seventies then almost everyone's life would be better today." Discuss.
"If Old Labour had not bulldozed most of the Grammar schools in the Sixties and Seventies then almost everyone's life would be better today." Discuss
Apart from the people who didn't get into the grammar schools I presume
No, everyone. The presence of those from the working class in positions of power helps everyone.
Apart from the people who didn't get into the grammar schools
Yep appalling institutions
So appalling they produced the highest number of non privately educated people products in our top professions, yes even judges and lawyers had plenty of grammar school alumni. More so than the number who now come from comprehensives
If you got rid of private schools and grammar schools then 100% of our PMs, people in top professions and judges and lawyers would be from comprehensives. Explain that one.
If you got rid of Waitrose, Marks and Spencer and Sainsburys all their customers would have to shop at Tesco, Aldi or Lidl. Explain that one.
I believe in choice for parents as much as consumers
Let me break it down for you.
1. I don't believe we should abolish existing grammar schools.
2. I don't believe we should abolish private schools.
3. However, if we did, then 100% of our 'elite' would be from comprehensives.
I ask again, explain that one?
If you ban private schools, then the ‘elites’ will send their kids to school abroad - just as the elites of many other countries currently aspire to be able to send their kids to school in the UK.
Only a small minority.
My point is that HY quotes statistics without any appreciation of the other factors at play.
We know that comprehensives are better in rich areas and we know that wealth players a big part in children's prospects, regardless of whether you go to a comprehensive or a grammar school.
Therefore simply saying "ah but X% of our 'elite' went to a grammar school" tells us absolutely nothing about the benefit of grammar schools.
It's just bollocks, as usual.
Your point is you are an ideological leftwing socialist who would deny parents the choice of where to send their children and would nationalise much of industry too given the chance.
Yes indeed comprehensives are better in wealthy areas and the left destroyed the best tools of tackling that for a bright child by abolishing the grammar schools that used to exist in inner cities or ex industrial areas or poor seaside towns. So the only ones left are generally in more prosperous areas with Tory councils where comprehensive schools and academies tend to be better anyway so they are less needed.
So we still have selection in state education, just by house price and vicar's reference, not by IQ
Also, grammar schools do not select by IQ. They select by wealth. Only a fool would try to pretend that wealth does not increase your chances of passing entrance exams by better access to learning materials and private tutors.
No, private schools and the best comprehensive schools select by parental wealth or house price (or church attendance).
Grammar schools select by IQ. If you have a low IQ tutoring will not get you through a grammar school entrance exam, if you have a high IQ you will pass a grammar school entrance exam regardless of tutoring
We have been here before also. Yes it will. You can train for IQ tests unless you are particularly dim. I gave you some examples of stuff you could do last time we had this argument. I could easily raise someone's IQ result with training and I had to administer such test for potential employees for one the large computer companies I used to work for. I guessed I could add 10 - 20 points to someone's test, but later in that discussion @rcs1000 posted a link showing the improvement could be as much as 30 points.
Here is just one of those techniques: If given a sequence of numbers and you have to find the next number and can't see it simply subtract each number from the next number in the sequence and create a new sequence. Repeat until a pattern appears. This can be done in seconds so doesn't waste time and works nearly all the time for sequences in IQ tests.
There are a few particularly dim pupils in some private schools without entrance exams.
There are no particularly dim pupils in grammar schools
There are you know. I taught several when I was teaching in a grammar.
It was not a good place for them. They found keeping up very, very tough.
By particularly dim we mean below average IQ, as I said there are none in grammar schools
Yet another subject about which you clearly know nothing.
But I'll leave it there.
Sorry but you are just not worth it.
Back to someone more interesting ...
Oh I know nothing because I don't accord to your left liberal ideological agenda, well tough I do not care less
Hyufd, it's not that you know nothing. You do know lots of things. Your knowledge of polling is unrivalled. And invaluable.
But at the same time, you do like to pontificate on subjects you don't know much about, and make mistakes as a result. Which isn't illegal. I can think of many posters who would accuse me of doing much the same, quite possibly starting with you (certainly your banned alter ego Justin would). The issue is that you almost never correct mistakes when they're pointed out to you. Which means, you (a) never learn from them and (b) look absolutely ridiculous as a result of your efforts to warp the facts to fit your misconceptions.
As I said before, I didn't find this anything other than irritating when we knew each other in person and I withdrew from your society as a result. Others found it funny. In fact my flatmate (another Simon) got a sort of bizarre pleasure out of trolling you and would frequently regale me, at great length, with your replies.
What's making matters worse for you at the moment is that as a loyal Tory you are trying to defend the truly indefensible even to start.
Just learn some humility. You might even enjoy yourself more.
Except normally humility is a cue for accept the left liberal consensus on x issue, here grammar schools it may be something else because we have extracted one data point we will use to push our point of view.
Which I will not do.
I cannot work out precisely what society you are talking about, I was involved in hiking at Aberystwyth and was a member of the Conservative Society but never its chairman or even on its committee (although I was chairman of the Conservative group when I was at Warwick)
No, humility is accepting that you are from time-to-time wrong.
I'm wrong all the time.
I love it when the people I work with prove me wrong, because that means I've learned something.
The fact that you think that sometimes admitting you're wrong is a "lefty liberal" plot is weird beyond belief.
A month or so ago, I had a big argument with @Leon about Wuhan. And you know what, he was right, and I was wrong. And I said 'you know what, you're absolutely right'. Of course, he's a famous lefty liberal, so I guess that just proves your point.
Yes but you are not a member of a political party, unlike me.
I am, part of the reason I come here is to improve my arguments for the conservative cases I believe in
My, you must have been bad at it before you found PB! What a lucky break that you found us.
Descending from the important questions in the Header to the nakedly partisan - apols - I wonder how a Sunak/Starmer match-up would play to the country? I haven't quite worked myself out a take on this yet. I do probably need to since he looks nailed on if and when 'it' finally happens.
Starmer's only real appeal is that he is the boring-but-competent one against the charismatic but flawed partygate buffoonery of Boris (being generous to Boris there).
Sunak would essentially occupy the same boring-but-competent territory. Which is bad for Starmer.
Except that one has a modicum of working class background and a trusted profession.
The other is the richest person in Parliament and was a banker. Replace the first letter & you have how most people view them.
lawyer who are almost as unloved as bankers.
Utterly untrue as Mike Smithson demonstrated the other day.
IPSOS MORI (One of your two permitted pollsters):
Other professions trusted by more than half of the public include museum curators, the police, lawyers, civil servants, the ordinary man/woman on the street and clergy/priests. Professions with negative net trust ratings include bankers, local councillors, business leaders, professional footballers, estate agents and journalists.
"If Old Labour had bulldozed Eton in the Seventies then almost everyone's life would be better today." Discuss.
"If Old Labour had not bulldozed most of the Grammar schools in the Sixties and Seventies then almost everyone's life would be better today." Discuss
Apart from the people who didn't get into the grammar schools I presume
No, everyone. The presence of those from the working class in positions of power helps everyone.
Apart from the people who didn't get into the grammar schools
Yep appalling institutions
So appalling they produced the highest number of non privately educated people products in our top professions, yes even judges and lawyers had plenty of grammar school alumni. More so than the number who now come from comprehensives
If you got rid of private schools and grammar schools then 100% of our PMs, people in top professions and judges and lawyers would be from comprehensives. Explain that one.
If you got rid of Waitrose, Marks and Spencer and Sainsburys all their customers would have to shop at Tesco, Aldi or Lidl. Explain that one.
I believe in choice for parents as much as consumers
Let me break it down for you.
1. I don't believe we should abolish existing grammar schools.
2. I don't believe we should abolish private schools.
3. However, if we did, then 100% of our 'elite' would be from comprehensives.
I ask again, explain that one?
If you ban private schools, then the ‘elites’ will send their kids to school abroad - just as the elites of many other countries currently aspire to be able to send their kids to school in the UK.
Only a small minority.
My point is that HY quotes statistics without any appreciation of the other factors at play.
We know that comprehensives are better in rich areas and we know that wealth players a big part in children's prospects, regardless of whether you go to a comprehensive or a grammar school.
Therefore simply saying "ah but X% of our 'elite' went to a grammar school" tells us absolutely nothing about the benefit of grammar schools.
It's just bollocks, as usual.
Your point is you are an ideological leftwing socialist who would deny parents the choice of where to send their children and would nationalise much of industry too given the chance.
Yes indeed comprehensives are better in wealthy areas and the left destroyed the best tools of tackling that for a bright child by abolishing the grammar schools that used to exist in inner cities or ex industrial areas or poor seaside towns. So the only ones left are generally in more prosperous areas with Tory councils where comprehensive schools and academies tend to be better anyway so they are less needed.
So we still have selection in state education, just by house price and vicar's reference, not by IQ
Also, grammar schools do not select by IQ. They select by wealth. Only a fool would try to pretend that wealth does not increase your chances of passing entrance exams by better access to learning materials and private tutors.
No, private schools and the best comprehensive schools select by parental wealth or house price (or church attendance).
Grammar schools select by IQ. If you have a low IQ tutoring will not get you through a grammar school entrance exam, if you have a high IQ you will pass a grammar school entrance exam regardless of tutoring
We have been here before also. Yes it will. You can train for IQ tests unless you are particularly dim. I gave you some examples of stuff you could do last time we had this argument. I could easily raise someone's IQ result with training and I had to administer such test for potential employees for one the large computer companies I used to work for. I guessed I could add 10 - 20 points to someone's test, but later in that discussion @rcs1000 posted a link showing the improvement could be as much as 30 points.
Here is just one of those techniques: If given a sequence of numbers and you have to find the next number and can't see it simply subtract each number from the next number in the sequence and create a new sequence. Repeat until a pattern appears. This can be done in seconds so doesn't waste time and works nearly all the time for sequences in IQ tests.
There are a few particularly dim pupils in some private schools without entrance exams.
There are no particularly dim pupils in grammar schools
There are you know. I taught several when I was teaching in a grammar.
It was not a good place for them. They found keeping up very, very tough.
By particularly dim we mean below average IQ, as I said there are none in grammar schools
Yet another subject about which you clearly know nothing.
But I'll leave it there.
Sorry but you are just not worth it.
Back to someone more interesting ...
Oh I know nothing because I don't accord to your left liberal ideological agenda, well tough I do not care less
Hyufd, it's not that you know nothing. You do know lots of things. Your knowledge of polling is unrivalled. And invaluable.
But at the same time, you do like to pontificate on subjects you don't know much about, and make mistakes as a result. Which isn't illegal. I can think of many posters who would accuse me of doing much the same, quite possibly starting with you (certainly your banned alter ego Justin would). The issue is that you almost never correct mistakes when they're pointed out to you. Which means, you (a) never learn from them and (b) look absolutely ridiculous as a result of your efforts to warp the facts to fit your misconceptions.
As I said before, I didn't find this anything other than irritating when we knew each other in person and I withdrew from your society as a result. Others found it funny. In fact my flatmate (another Simon) got a sort of bizarre pleasure out of trolling you and would frequently regale me, at great length, with your replies.
What's making matters worse for you at the moment is that as a loyal Tory you are trying to defend the truly indefensible even to start.
Just learn some humility. You might even enjoy yourself more.
I share some of your opinions of @HYUFD, in particular an occasional admission of being wrong is something he should consider.
Some of your post however is a bit close to Doxxing, and like many others who use pseudonyms here, something that makes me a bit uncomfortable.
I think @HYUFD has disclosed his identity on the board before, no?
(and FWIW, obviously being an elected councillor means you have to enter your particulars in the register of members' interests, which is in the public domain; indeed, some councils publish that register online.)
Not grammar schools again, please. The only place I ever come across nostalgia for grammar schools is on PB. They are the past, not the future. Even the Tory Party has shut up about them (apart from in Epping).
UKIP wanted a "grammar school in every town". No other party is interested. Tells you all you need to know. And why? Because the evidence (educational and social mobility) that they do more harm than good is incontrovertible. Trust me.
Not sure why you'd expect anyone to 'trust you', and this post is a collection of sloppy empty clichés, of which 'they are the past not the future' is the emptiest.
Thanks for the rudeness. I've spent the last forty years working in education and educational policy, much of it on data analysis, at a high level. So while I'm pretty ignorant about much, I think I know about this. And guess what? The Tory party doesn't advocate the return of a tertiary system of secondary education.
Any time. I am sure that you have a great deal of knowledge on the subject, but you claimed 'incontrevertible evidence' that grammar schools have done more harm than good. If you have such evidence, why not present it?
The problem with grammar schools is not the grammar schools. Grammar schools, by and large, do a great job of educating kids. The 25% of kids who get into grammar schools do better than the top 25% of kids in comprehensives.
The problem is that the educational outcomes of the people who end up at the secondary moderns is significantly worse than if they had been to comprehensive schools.
And I would argue that the educational system in the UK's big problem for a very long time has been a lack of focus on the 75% of kids who probably shouldn't be going to university. It's ensuring - as they do in Switzerland or Germany - that they get the right skills to succeed.
The grammar discussion is the wrong one. It's a myopic focus on kids who are mostly going to do fine anyway. When the people we should worrying about aren't the people getting good GCSEs and A-Levels.
I'm not sure that the top 25% in the most deprived areas are going to do fine.
So I can see the point of grammar schools in the likes of Knowsley or Hull.
I get that, and I'm not saying 'no selection'. I'm saying the purpose of selection needs to be as much to improve the outcomes of those who don't make it to grammar schools, as those who do.
And right now, poorer kids in selective counties do worse (academically) than those in non-selective counties.
Now, I suspect that this is an artifact of the top 5-10% doing better, but then 80-90% doing quite a lot worse.
Not grammar schools again, please. The only place I ever come across nostalgia for grammar schools is on PB. They are the past, not the future. Even the Tory Party has shut up about them (apart from in Epping).
UKIP wanted a "grammar school in every town". No other party is interested. Tells you all you need to know. And why? Because the evidence (educational and social mobility) that they do more harm than good is incontrovertible. Trust me.
Not sure why you'd expect anyone to 'trust you', and this post is a collection of sloppy empty clichés, of which 'they are the past not the future' is the emptiest.
Thanks for the rudeness. I've spent the last forty years working in education and educational policy, much of it on data analysis, at a high level. So while I'm pretty ignorant about much, I think I know about this. And guess what? The Tory party doesn't advocate the return of a tertiary system of secondary education.
Any time. I am sure that you have a great deal of knowledge on the subject, but you claimed 'incontrevertible evidence' that grammar schools have done more harm than good. If you have such evidence, why not present it?
The problem with grammar schools is not the grammar schools. Grammar schools, by and large, do a great job of educating kids. The 25% of kids who get into grammar schools do better than the top 25% of kids in comprehensives.
The problem is that the educational outcomes of the people who end up at the secondary moderns is significantly worse than if they had been to comprehensive schools.
And I would argue that the educational system in the UK's big problem for a very long time has been a lack of focus on the 75% of kids who probably shouldn't be going to university. It's ensuring - as they do in Switzerland or Germany - that they get the right skills to succeed.
The grammar discussion is the wrong one. It's a myopic focus on kids who are mostly going to do fine anyway. When the people we should worrying about aren't the people getting good GCSEs and A-Levels.
Germany has grammar schools, gymnasiums, it also has excellent technical and vocational skills in other schools
The point I'm making is not that there shouldn't be selection (although I suspect 13/14 is a better age than 11), but that the British system fails those who don't go down the academic/grammar route.
As a country, we do a poor job getting the right skills to people who are in the bottom 60%. And that problem is worse in grammar school areas.
This discussion should be 'how do we improve the outcomes for the bottom 60% of students'?
Because that is where the UK is failing.
Exactly. Grammar Schools were never the problem. The problem was Secondary Moderns. The simplest way to get rid of Secondary Moderns was to do away with Grammar Schools.
Maybe if we'd had a bunch of exercises for children at the end of primary, designed to test their aptitude for learning technical/practical/vocational skills, and sent the kids who passed into prestigious technical schools - and let the kids who "failed" do book-learning - we would have ended up in a better place.
Descending from the important questions in the Header to the nakedly partisan - apols - I wonder how a Sunak/Starmer match-up would play to the country? I haven't quite worked myself out a take on this yet. I do probably need to since he looks nailed on if and when 'it' finally happens.
Starmer's only real appeal is that he is the boring-but-competent one against the charismatic but flawed partygate buffoonery of Boris (being generous to Boris there).
Sunak would essentially occupy the same boring-but-competent territory. Which is bad for Starmer.
Except that one has a modicum of working class background and a trusted profession.
The other is the richest person in Parliament and was a banker. Replace the first letter & you have how most people view them.
lawyer who are almost as unloved as bankers.
Utterly untrue as Mike Smithson demonstrated the other day.
IPSOS MORI (One of your two permitted pollsters):
Other professions trusted by more than half of the public include museum curators, the police, lawyers, civil servants, the ordinary man/woman on the street and clergy/priests. Professions with negative net trust ratings include bankers, local councillors, business leaders, professional footballers, estate agents and journalists.
"If Old Labour had bulldozed Eton in the Seventies then almost everyone's life would be better today." Discuss.
"If Old Labour had not bulldozed most of the Grammar schools in the Sixties and Seventies then almost everyone's life would be better today." Discuss
Apart from the people who didn't get into the grammar schools I presume
No, everyone. The presence of those from the working class in positions of power helps everyone.
Apart from the people who didn't get into the grammar schools
Yep appalling institutions
So appalling they produced the highest number of non privately educated people products in our top professions, yes even judges and lawyers had plenty of grammar school alumni. More so than the number who now come from comprehensives
If you got rid of private schools and grammar schools then 100% of our PMs, people in top professions and judges and lawyers would be from comprehensives. Explain that one.
If you got rid of Waitrose, Marks and Spencer and Sainsburys all their customers would have to shop at Tesco, Aldi or Lidl. Explain that one.
I believe in choice for parents as much as consumers
Let me break it down for you.
1. I don't believe we should abolish existing grammar schools.
2. I don't believe we should abolish private schools.
3. However, if we did, then 100% of our 'elite' would be from comprehensives.
I ask again, explain that one?
If you ban private schools, then the ‘elites’ will send their kids to school abroad - just as the elites of many other countries currently aspire to be able to send their kids to school in the UK.
Only a small minority.
My point is that HY quotes statistics without any appreciation of the other factors at play.
We know that comprehensives are better in rich areas and we know that wealth players a big part in children's prospects, regardless of whether you go to a comprehensive or a grammar school.
Therefore simply saying "ah but X% of our 'elite' went to a grammar school" tells us absolutely nothing about the benefit of grammar schools.
It's just bollocks, as usual.
Your point is you are an ideological leftwing socialist who would deny parents the choice of where to send their children and would nationalise much of industry too given the chance.
Yes indeed comprehensives are better in wealthy areas and the left destroyed the best tools of tackling that for a bright child by abolishing the grammar schools that used to exist in inner cities or ex industrial areas or poor seaside towns. So the only ones left are generally in more prosperous areas with Tory councils where comprehensive schools and academies tend to be better anyway so they are less needed.
So we still have selection in state education, just by house price and vicar's reference, not by IQ
Also, grammar schools do not select by IQ. They select by wealth. Only a fool would try to pretend that wealth does not increase your chances of passing entrance exams by better access to learning materials and private tutors.
No, private schools and the best comprehensive schools select by parental wealth or house price (or church attendance).
Grammar schools select by IQ. If you have a low IQ tutoring will not get you through a grammar school entrance exam, if you have a high IQ you will pass a grammar school entrance exam regardless of tutoring
We have been here before also. Yes it will. You can train for IQ tests unless you are particularly dim. I gave you some examples of stuff you could do last time we had this argument. I could easily raise someone's IQ result with training and I had to administer such test for potential employees for one the large computer companies I used to work for. I guessed I could add 10 - 20 points to someone's test, but later in that discussion @rcs1000 posted a link showing the improvement could be as much as 30 points.
Here is just one of those techniques: If given a sequence of numbers and you have to find the next number and can't see it simply subtract each number from the next number in the sequence and create a new sequence. Repeat until a pattern appears. This can be done in seconds so doesn't waste time and works nearly all the time for sequences in IQ tests.
There are a few particularly dim pupils in some private schools without entrance exams.
There are no particularly dim pupils in grammar schools
There are you know. I taught several when I was teaching in a grammar.
It was not a good place for them. They found keeping up very, very tough.
By particularly dim we mean below average IQ, as I said there are none in grammar schools
Yet another subject about which you clearly know nothing.
But I'll leave it there.
Sorry but you are just not worth it.
Back to someone more interesting ...
Oh I know nothing because I don't accord to your left liberal ideological agenda, well tough I do not care less
Hyufd, it's not that you know nothing. You do know lots of things. Your knowledge of polling is unrivalled. And invaluable.
But at the same time, you do like to pontificate on subjects you don't know much about, and make mistakes as a result. Which isn't illegal. I can think of many posters who would accuse me of doing much the same, quite possibly starting with you (certainly your banned alter ego Justin would). The issue is that you almost never correct mistakes when they're pointed out to you. Which means, you (a) never learn from them and (b) look absolutely ridiculous as a result of your efforts to warp the facts to fit your misconceptions.
As I said before, I didn't find this anything other than irritating when we knew each other in person and I withdrew from your society as a result. Others found it funny. In fact my flatmate (another Simon) got a sort of bizarre pleasure out of trolling you and would frequently regale me, at great length, with your replies.
What's making matters worse for you at the moment is that as a loyal Tory you are trying to defend the truly indefensible even to start.
Just learn some humility. You might even enjoy yourself more.
Except normally humility is a cue for accept the left liberal consensus on x issue, here grammar schools it may be something else because we have extracted one data point we will use to push our point of view.
Which I will not do.
I cannot work out precisely what society you are talking about, I was involved in hiking at Aberystwyth and was a member of the Conservative Society but never its chairman or even on its committee (although I was chairman of the Conservative group when I was at Warwick)
No, humility is accepting that you are from time-to-time wrong.
I'm wrong all the time.
I love it when the people I work with prove me wrong, because that means I've learned something.
The fact that you think that sometimes admitting you're wrong is a "lefty liberal" plot is weird beyond belief.
A month or so ago, I had a big argument with @Leon about Wuhan. And you know what, he was right, and I was wrong. And I said 'you know what, you're absolutely right'. Of course, he's a famous lefty liberal, so I guess that just proves your point.
Yes but you are not a member of a political party, unlike me.
I am, part of the reason I come here is to improve my arguments for the conservative cases I believe in
“Trust those who seek the truth but doubt those who say they have found it.”
I think @HYUFD has disclosed his identity on the board before, no?
A few things but not fully.
Charles we know was identified against his will and has sadly now departed the site (albeit Charles is a rather higher profile figure than me)
I believe that in Charles’s case it wasn’t the identification (which he didn’t hide) but the fact that @IshmaelZ implied he’d communicate some of what he (perhaps indiscreetly) shared to people who knew him IRL
Not grammar schools again, please. The only place I ever come across nostalgia for grammar schools is on PB. They are the past, not the future. Even the Tory Party has shut up about them (apart from in Epping).
UKIP wanted a "grammar school in every town". No other party is interested. Tells you all you need to know. And why? Because the evidence (educational and social mobility) that they do more harm than good is incontrovertible. Trust me.
Not sure why you'd expect anyone to 'trust you', and this post is a collection of sloppy empty clichés, of which 'they are the past not the future' is the emptiest.
Thanks for the rudeness. I've spent the last forty years working in education and educational policy, much of it on data analysis, at a high level. So while I'm pretty ignorant about much, I think I know about this. And guess what? The Tory party doesn't advocate the return of a tertiary system of secondary education.
Any time. I am sure that you have a great deal of knowledge on the subject, but you claimed 'incontrevertible evidence' that grammar schools have done more harm than good. If you have such evidence, why not present it?
The problem with grammar schools is not the grammar schools. Grammar schools, by and large, do a great job of educating kids. The 25% of kids who get into grammar schools do better than the top 25% of kids in comprehensives.
The problem is that the educational outcomes of the people who end up at the secondary moderns is significantly worse than if they had been to comprehensive schools.
And I would argue that the educational system in the UK's big problem for a very long time has been a lack of focus on the 75% of kids who probably shouldn't be going to university. It's ensuring - as they do in Switzerland or Germany - that they get the right skills to succeed.
The grammar discussion is the wrong one. It's a myopic focus on kids who are mostly going to do fine anyway. When the people we should worrying about aren't the people getting good GCSEs and A-Levels.
Germany has grammar schools, gymnasiums, it also has excellent technical and vocational skills in other schools
The point I'm making is not that there shouldn't be selection (although I suspect 13/14 is a better age than 11), but that the British system fails those who don't go down the academic/grammar route.
As a country, we do a poor job getting the right skills to people who are in the bottom 60%. And that problem is worse in grammar school areas.
This discussion should be 'how do we improve the outcomes for the bottom 60% of students'?
Because that is where the UK is failing.
Exactly. Grammar Schools were never the problem. The problem was Secondary Moderns. The simplest way to get rid of Secondary Moderns was to do away with Grammar Schools.
Maybe if we'd had a bunch of exercises for children at the end of primary, designed to test their aptitude for learning technical/practical/vocational skills, and sent the kids who passed into prestigious technical schools - and let the kids who "failed" do book-learning - we would have ended up in a better place.
What we should have done was improve Secondary Moderns.
Not grammar schools again, please. The only place I ever come across nostalgia for grammar schools is on PB. They are the past, not the future. Even the Tory Party has shut up about them (apart from in Epping).
UKIP wanted a "grammar school in every town". No other party is interested. Tells you all you need to know. And why? Because the evidence (educational and social mobility) that they do more harm than good is incontrovertible. Trust me.
Not sure why you'd expect anyone to 'trust you', and this post is a collection of sloppy empty clichés, of which 'they are the past not the future' is the emptiest.
Thanks for the rudeness. I've spent the last forty years working in education and educational policy, much of it on data analysis, at a high level. So while I'm pretty ignorant about much, I think I know about this. And guess what? The Tory party doesn't advocate the return of a tertiary system of secondary education.
Any time. I am sure that you have a great deal of knowledge on the subject, but you claimed 'incontrevertible evidence' that grammar schools have done more harm than good. If you have such evidence, why not present it?
The problem with grammar schools is not the grammar schools. Grammar schools, by and large, do a great job of educating kids. The 25% of kids who get into grammar schools do better than the top 25% of kids in comprehensives.
The problem is that the educational outcomes of the people who end up at the secondary moderns is significantly worse than if they had been to comprehensive schools.
And I would argue that the educational system in the UK's big problem for a very long time has been a lack of focus on the 75% of kids who probably shouldn't be going to university. It's ensuring - as they do in Switzerland or Germany - that they get the right skills to succeed.
The grammar discussion is the wrong one. It's a myopic focus on kids who are mostly going to do fine anyway. When the people we should worrying about aren't the people getting good GCSEs and A-Levels.
I care about the people who would have done well at grammar schools but don't at comprehensive schools (for various reasons).
Everyone learns differently, and there is no perfect system. Anyone who says "grammars are perfect" or "comprehensives are perfect" is an idiot.
But I think @LostPassword gets it right below. The vocational option has to be at least as an attractive as the grammar one, otherwise all we're doing is worsening the UK's existing problem: that we have a very large number of people without the right skills to survive in a modern economy.
And that has impacts beyond just the individual. It means that if I wanted to to setup a manufacturing plant I'd probably choose Dresden, not Darlington. Our education system doesn't just fail the bottom 60% of pupils, it fails our country too.
And the myopic fixation on grammar schools as a catch all solution to educational issues is scary beyond belief.
Not grammar schools again, please. The only place I ever come across nostalgia for grammar schools is on PB. They are the past, not the future. Even the Tory Party has shut up about them (apart from in Epping).
UKIP wanted a "grammar school in every town". No other party is interested. Tells you all you need to know. And why? Because the evidence (educational and social mobility) that they do more harm than good is incontrovertible. Trust me.
Not sure why you'd expect anyone to 'trust you', and this post is a collection of sloppy empty clichés, of which 'they are the past not the future' is the emptiest.
Thanks for the rudeness. I've spent the last forty years working in education and educational policy, much of it on data analysis, at a high level. So while I'm pretty ignorant about much, I think I know about this. And guess what? The Tory party doesn't advocate the return of a tertiary system of secondary education.
Any time. I am sure that you have a great deal of knowledge on the subject, but you claimed 'incontrevertible evidence' that grammar schools have done more harm than good. If you have such evidence, why not present it?
The problem with grammar schools is not the grammar schools. Grammar schools, by and large, do a great job of educating kids. The 25% of kids who get into grammar schools do better than the top 25% of kids in comprehensives.
The problem is that the educational outcomes of the people who end up at the secondary moderns is significantly worse than if they had been to comprehensive schools.
And I would argue that the educational system in the UK's big problem for a very long time has been a lack of focus on the 75% of kids who probably shouldn't be going to university. It's ensuring - as they do in Switzerland or Germany - that they get the right skills to succeed.
The grammar discussion is the wrong one. It's a myopic focus on kids who are mostly going to do fine anyway. When the people we should worrying about aren't the people getting good GCSEs and A-Levels.
I care about the people who would have done well at grammar schools but don't at comprehensive schools (for various reasons).
Everyone learns differently, and there is no perfect system. Anyone who says "grammars are perfect" or "comprehensives are perfect" is an idiot.
And in line for a long and successful career at the DfE.
Not grammar schools again, please. The only place I ever come across nostalgia for grammar schools is on PB. They are the past, not the future. Even the Tory Party has shut up about them (apart from in Epping).
UKIP wanted a "grammar school in every town". No other party is interested. Tells you all you need to know. And why? Because the evidence (educational and social mobility) that they do more harm than good is incontrovertible. Trust me.
Not sure why you'd expect anyone to 'trust you', and this post is a collection of sloppy empty clichés, of which 'they are the past not the future' is the emptiest.
Thanks for the rudeness. I've spent the last forty years working in education and educational policy, much of it on data analysis, at a high level. So while I'm pretty ignorant about much, I think I know about this. And guess what? The Tory party doesn't advocate the return of a tertiary system of secondary education.
Any time. I am sure that you have a great deal of knowledge on the subject, but you claimed 'incontrevertible evidence' that grammar schools have done more harm than good. If you have such evidence, why not present it?
The problem with grammar schools is not the grammar schools. Grammar schools, by and large, do a great job of educating kids. The 25% of kids who get into grammar schools do better than the top 25% of kids in comprehensives.
The problem is that the educational outcomes of the people who end up at the secondary moderns is significantly worse than if they had been to comprehensive schools.
And I would argue that the educational system in the UK's big problem for a very long time has been a lack of focus on the 75% of kids who probably shouldn't be going to university. It's ensuring - as they do in Switzerland or Germany - that they get the right skills to succeed.
The grammar discussion is the wrong one. It's a myopic focus on kids who are mostly going to do fine anyway. When the people we should worrying about aren't the people getting good GCSEs and A-Levels.
I'm not sure that the top 25% in the most deprived areas are going to do fine.
So I can see the point of grammar schools in the likes of Knowsley or Hull.
I get that, and I'm not saying 'no selection'. I'm saying the purpose of selection needs to be as much to improve the outcomes of those who don't make it to grammar schools, as those who do.
And right now, poorer kids in selective counties do worse (academically) than those in non-selective counties.
Now, I suspect that this is an artifact of the top 5-10% doing better, but then 80-90% doing quite a lot worse.
And that's a serious problem.
I don't think anyone seriously opposes selection for university, and few would oppose for post 16 education. 11 years old does trouble me though. Perhaps heavily influenced by my older brother, who has since had a distinguished career as an Economist, failed his 11+ and was only saved by the area going Comprehensive the following year.
Descending from the important questions in the Header to the nakedly partisan - apols - I wonder how a Sunak/Starmer match-up would play to the country? I haven't quite worked myself out a take on this yet. I do probably need to since he looks nailed on if and when 'it' finally happens.
Starmer's only real appeal is that he is the boring-but-competent one against the charismatic but flawed partygate buffoonery of Boris (being generous to Boris there).
Sunak would essentially occupy the same boring-but-competent territory. Which is bad for Starmer.
Except that one has a modicum of working class background and a trusted profession.
The other is the richest person in Parliament and was a banker. Replace the first letter & you have how most people view them.
lawyer who are almost as unloved as bankers.
Utterly untrue as Mike Smithson demonstrated the other day.
IPSOS MORI (One of your two permitted pollsters):
Other professions trusted by more than half of the public include museum curators, the police, lawyers, civil servants, the ordinary man/woman on the street and clergy/priests. Professions with negative net trust ratings include bankers, local councillors, business leaders, professional footballers, estate agents and journalists.
"If Old Labour had bulldozed Eton in the Seventies then almost everyone's life would be better today." Discuss.
"If Old Labour had not bulldozed most of the Grammar schools in the Sixties and Seventies then almost everyone's life would be better today." Discuss
Apart from the people who didn't get into the grammar schools I presume
No, everyone. The presence of those from the working class in positions of power helps everyone.
Apart from the people who didn't get into the grammar schools
Yep appalling institutions
So appalling they produced the highest number of non privately educated people products in our top professions, yes even judges and lawyers had plenty of grammar school alumni. More so than the number who now come from comprehensives
If you got rid of private schools and grammar schools then 100% of our PMs, people in top professions and judges and lawyers would be from comprehensives. Explain that one.
If you got rid of Waitrose, Marks and Spencer and Sainsburys all their customers would have to shop at Tesco, Aldi or Lidl. Explain that one.
I believe in choice for parents as much as consumers
Let me break it down for you.
1. I don't believe we should abolish existing grammar schools.
2. I don't believe we should abolish private schools.
3. However, if we did, then 100% of our 'elite' would be from comprehensives.
I ask again, explain that one?
If you ban private schools, then the ‘elites’ will send their kids to school abroad - just as the elites of many other countries currently aspire to be able to send their kids to school in the UK.
Only a small minority.
My point is that HY quotes statistics without any appreciation of the other factors at play.
We know that comprehensives are better in rich areas and we know that wealth players a big part in children's prospects, regardless of whether you go to a comprehensive or a grammar school.
Therefore simply saying "ah but X% of our 'elite' went to a grammar school" tells us absolutely nothing about the benefit of grammar schools.
It's just bollocks, as usual.
Your point is you are an ideological leftwing socialist who would deny parents the choice of where to send their children and would nationalise much of industry too given the chance.
Yes indeed comprehensives are better in wealthy areas and the left destroyed the best tools of tackling that for a bright child by abolishing the grammar schools that used to exist in inner cities or ex industrial areas or poor seaside towns. So the only ones left are generally in more prosperous areas with Tory councils where comprehensive schools and academies tend to be better anyway so they are less needed.
So we still have selection in state education, just by house price and vicar's reference, not by IQ
Also, grammar schools do not select by IQ. They select by wealth. Only a fool would try to pretend that wealth does not increase your chances of passing entrance exams by better access to learning materials and private tutors.
No, private schools and the best comprehensive schools select by parental wealth or house price (or church attendance).
Grammar schools select by IQ. If you have a low IQ tutoring will not get you through a grammar school entrance exam, if you have a high IQ you will pass a grammar school entrance exam regardless of tutoring
We have been here before also. Yes it will. You can train for IQ tests unless you are particularly dim. I gave you some examples of stuff you could do last time we had this argument. I could easily raise someone's IQ result with training and I had to administer such test for potential employees for one the large computer companies I used to work for. I guessed I could add 10 - 20 points to someone's test, but later in that discussion @rcs1000 posted a link showing the improvement could be as much as 30 points.
Here is just one of those techniques: If given a sequence of numbers and you have to find the next number and can't see it simply subtract each number from the next number in the sequence and create a new sequence. Repeat until a pattern appears. This can be done in seconds so doesn't waste time and works nearly all the time for sequences in IQ tests.
There are a few particularly dim pupils in some private schools without entrance exams.
There are no particularly dim pupils in grammar schools
There are you know. I taught several when I was teaching in a grammar.
It was not a good place for them. They found keeping up very, very tough.
By particularly dim we mean below average IQ, as I said there are none in grammar schools
Yet another subject about which you clearly know nothing.
But I'll leave it there.
Sorry but you are just not worth it.
Back to someone more interesting ...
Oh I know nothing because I don't accord to your left liberal ideological agenda, well tough I do not care less
Hyufd, it's not that you know nothing. You do know lots of things. Your knowledge of polling is unrivalled. And invaluable.
But at the same time, you do like to pontificate on subjects you don't know much about, and make mistakes as a result. Which isn't illegal. I can think of many posters who would accuse me of doing much the same, quite possibly starting with you (certainly your banned alter ego Justin would). The issue is that you almost never correct mistakes when they're pointed out to you. Which means, you (a) never learn from them and (b) look absolutely ridiculous as a result of your efforts to warp the facts to fit your misconceptions.
As I said before, I didn't find this anything other than irritating when we knew each other in person and I withdrew from your society as a result. Others found it funny. In fact my flatmate (another Simon) got a sort of bizarre pleasure out of trolling you and would frequently regale me, at great length, with your replies.
What's making matters worse for you at the moment is that as a loyal Tory you are trying to defend the truly indefensible even to start.
Just learn some humility. You might even enjoy yourself more.
Except normally humility is a cue for accept the left liberal consensus on x issue, here grammar schools it may be something else because we have extracted one data point we will use to push our point of view.
Which I will not do.
I cannot work out precisely what society you are talking about, I was involved in hiking at Aberystwyth and was a member of the Conservative Society but never its chairman or even on its committee (although I was chairman of the Conservative group when I was at Warwick)
Well, if it helps, it was the Walking Club.
I hadn't made the connection until fairly recently.
ETA Incidentally by 'withdrawing from your society' I meant 'stopped talking to you,' not left the walking club!
Fine but it was never my society, I was only a member of it
It's a small world after all.
At least Wales, with all its scenery, singing and spectacular weather, made enough of a mark to gift him lifelong sympathy with the cause of Welsh nationalism.
Descending from the important questions in the Header to the nakedly partisan - apols - I wonder how a Sunak/Starmer match-up would play to the country? I haven't quite worked myself out a take on this yet. I do probably need to since he looks nailed on if and when 'it' finally happens.
Starmer's only real appeal is that he is the boring-but-competent one against the charismatic but flawed partygate buffoonery of Boris (being generous to Boris there).
Sunak would essentially occupy the same boring-but-competent territory. Which is bad for Starmer.
Except that one has a modicum of working class background and a trusted profession.
The other is the richest person in Parliament and was a banker. Replace the first letter & you have how most people view them.
lawyer who are almost as unloved as bankers.
Utterly untrue as Mike Smithson demonstrated the other day.
IPSOS MORI (One of your two permitted pollsters):
Other professions trusted by more than half of the public include museum curators, the police, lawyers, civil servants, the ordinary man/woman on the street and clergy/priests. Professions with negative net trust ratings include bankers, local councillors, business leaders, professional footballers, estate agents and journalists.
"If Old Labour had bulldozed Eton in the Seventies then almost everyone's life would be better today." Discuss.
"If Old Labour had not bulldozed most of the Grammar schools in the Sixties and Seventies then almost everyone's life would be better today." Discuss
Apart from the people who didn't get into the grammar schools I presume
No, everyone. The presence of those from the working class in positions of power helps everyone.
Apart from the people who didn't get into the grammar schools
Yep appalling institutions
So appalling they produced the highest number of non privately educated people products in our top professions, yes even judges and lawyers had plenty of grammar school alumni. More so than the number who now come from comprehensives
If you got rid of private schools and grammar schools then 100% of our PMs, people in top professions and judges and lawyers would be from comprehensives. Explain that one.
If you got rid of Waitrose, Marks and Spencer and Sainsburys all their customers would have to shop at Tesco, Aldi or Lidl. Explain that one.
I believe in choice for parents as much as consumers
Let me break it down for you.
1. I don't believe we should abolish existing grammar schools.
2. I don't believe we should abolish private schools.
3. However, if we did, then 100% of our 'elite' would be from comprehensives.
I ask again, explain that one?
If you ban private schools, then the ‘elites’ will send their kids to school abroad - just as the elites of many other countries currently aspire to be able to send their kids to school in the UK.
Only a small minority.
My point is that HY quotes statistics without any appreciation of the other factors at play.
We know that comprehensives are better in rich areas and we know that wealth players a big part in children's prospects, regardless of whether you go to a comprehensive or a grammar school.
Therefore simply saying "ah but X% of our 'elite' went to a grammar school" tells us absolutely nothing about the benefit of grammar schools.
It's just bollocks, as usual.
Your point is you are an ideological leftwing socialist who would deny parents the choice of where to send their children and would nationalise much of industry too given the chance.
Yes indeed comprehensives are better in wealthy areas and the left destroyed the best tools of tackling that for a bright child by abolishing the grammar schools that used to exist in inner cities or ex industrial areas or poor seaside towns. So the only ones left are generally in more prosperous areas with Tory councils where comprehensive schools and academies tend to be better anyway so they are less needed.
So we still have selection in state education, just by house price and vicar's reference, not by IQ
Also, grammar schools do not select by IQ. They select by wealth. Only a fool would try to pretend that wealth does not increase your chances of passing entrance exams by better access to learning materials and private tutors.
No, private schools and the best comprehensive schools select by parental wealth or house price (or church attendance).
Grammar schools select by IQ. If you have a low IQ tutoring will not get you through a grammar school entrance exam, if you have a high IQ you will pass a grammar school entrance exam regardless of tutoring
We have been here before also. Yes it will. You can train for IQ tests unless you are particularly dim. I gave you some examples of stuff you could do last time we had this argument. I could easily raise someone's IQ result with training and I had to administer such test for potential employees for one the large computer companies I used to work for. I guessed I could add 10 - 20 points to someone's test, but later in that discussion @rcs1000 posted a link showing the improvement could be as much as 30 points.
Here is just one of those techniques: If given a sequence of numbers and you have to find the next number and can't see it simply subtract each number from the next number in the sequence and create a new sequence. Repeat until a pattern appears. This can be done in seconds so doesn't waste time and works nearly all the time for sequences in IQ tests.
There are a few particularly dim pupils in some private schools without entrance exams.
There are no particularly dim pupils in grammar schools
There are you know. I taught several when I was teaching in a grammar.
It was not a good place for them. They found keeping up very, very tough.
By particularly dim we mean below average IQ, as I said there are none in grammar schools
Yet another subject about which you clearly know nothing.
But I'll leave it there.
Sorry but you are just not worth it.
Back to someone more interesting ...
Oh I know nothing because I don't accord to your left liberal ideological agenda, well tough I do not care less
Hyufd, it's not that you know nothing. You do know lots of things. Your knowledge of polling is unrivalled. And invaluable.
But at the same time, you do like to pontificate on subjects you don't know much about, and make mistakes as a result. Which isn't illegal. I can think of many posters who would accuse me of doing much the same, quite possibly starting with you (certainly your banned alter ego Justin would). The issue is that you almost never correct mistakes when they're pointed out to you. Which means, you (a) never learn from them and (b) look absolutely ridiculous as a result of your efforts to warp the facts to fit your misconceptions.
As I said before, I didn't find this anything other than irritating when we knew each other in person and I withdrew from your society as a result. Others found it funny. In fact my flatmate (another Simon) got a sort of bizarre pleasure out of trolling you and would frequently regale me, at great length, with your replies.
What's making matters worse for you at the moment is that as a loyal Tory you are trying to defend the truly indefensible even to start.
Just learn some humility. You might even enjoy yourself more.
I share some of your opinions of @HYUFD, in particular an occasional admission of being wrong is something he should consider.
Some of your post however is a bit close to Doxxing, and like many others who use pseudonyms here, something that makes me a bit uncomfortable.
I think @HYUFD has disclosed his identity on the board before, no?
A few things but not fully.
Charles we know was identified against his will and has sadly now departed the site (albeit Charles is a rather higher profile figure than me)
Charles has been absolutely candid about his identity over many years, but resented it being crudely used against him. He brought a unique point of view to the site and I for one hope he eventually returns.
Descending from the important questions in the Header to the nakedly partisan - apols - I wonder how a Sunak/Starmer match-up would play to the country? I haven't quite worked myself out a take on this yet. I do probably need to since he looks nailed on if and when 'it' finally happens.
Starmer's only real appeal is that he is the boring-but-competent one against the charismatic but flawed partygate buffoonery of Boris (being generous to Boris there).
Sunak would essentially occupy the same boring-but-competent territory. Which is bad for Starmer.
Except that one has a modicum of working class background and a trusted profession.
The other is the richest person in Parliament and was a banker. Replace the first letter & you have how most people view them.
lawyer who are almost as unloved as bankers.
Utterly untrue as Mike Smithson demonstrated the other day.
IPSOS MORI (One of your two permitted pollsters):
Other professions trusted by more than half of the public include museum curators, the police, lawyers, civil servants, the ordinary man/woman on the street and clergy/priests. Professions with negative net trust ratings include bankers, local councillors, business leaders, professional footballers, estate agents and journalists.
"If Old Labour had bulldozed Eton in the Seventies then almost everyone's life would be better today." Discuss.
"If Old Labour had not bulldozed most of the Grammar schools in the Sixties and Seventies then almost everyone's life would be better today." Discuss
Apart from the people who didn't get into the grammar schools I presume
No, everyone. The presence of those from the working class in positions of power helps everyone.
Apart from the people who didn't get into the grammar schools
Yep appalling institutions
So appalling they produced the highest number of non privately educated people products in our top professions, yes even judges and lawyers had plenty of grammar school alumni. More so than the number who now come from comprehensives
If you got rid of private schools and grammar schools then 100% of our PMs, people in top professions and judges and lawyers would be from comprehensives. Explain that one.
If you got rid of Waitrose, Marks and Spencer and Sainsburys all their customers would have to shop at Tesco, Aldi or Lidl. Explain that one.
I believe in choice for parents as much as consumers
Let me break it down for you.
1. I don't believe we should abolish existing grammar schools.
2. I don't believe we should abolish private schools.
3. However, if we did, then 100% of our 'elite' would be from comprehensives.
I ask again, explain that one?
If you ban private schools, then the ‘elites’ will send their kids to school abroad - just as the elites of many other countries currently aspire to be able to send their kids to school in the UK.
Only a small minority.
My point is that HY quotes statistics without any appreciation of the other factors at play.
We know that comprehensives are better in rich areas and we know that wealth players a big part in children's prospects, regardless of whether you go to a comprehensive or a grammar school.
Therefore simply saying "ah but X% of our 'elite' went to a grammar school" tells us absolutely nothing about the benefit of grammar schools.
It's just bollocks, as usual.
Your point is you are an ideological leftwing socialist who would deny parents the choice of where to send their children and would nationalise much of industry too given the chance.
Yes indeed comprehensives are better in wealthy areas and the left destroyed the best tools of tackling that for a bright child by abolishing the grammar schools that used to exist in inner cities or ex industrial areas or poor seaside towns. So the only ones left are generally in more prosperous areas with Tory councils where comprehensive schools and academies tend to be better anyway so they are less needed.
So we still have selection in state education, just by house price and vicar's reference, not by IQ
Also, grammar schools do not select by IQ. They select by wealth. Only a fool would try to pretend that wealth does not increase your chances of passing entrance exams by better access to learning materials and private tutors.
No, private schools and the best comprehensive schools select by parental wealth or house price (or church attendance).
Grammar schools select by IQ. If you have a low IQ tutoring will not get you through a grammar school entrance exam, if you have a high IQ you will pass a grammar school entrance exam regardless of tutoring
We have been here before also. Yes it will. You can train for IQ tests unless you are particularly dim. I gave you some examples of stuff you could do last time we had this argument. I could easily raise someone's IQ result with training and I had to administer such test for potential employees for one the large computer companies I used to work for. I guessed I could add 10 - 20 points to someone's test, but later in that discussion @rcs1000 posted a link showing the improvement could be as much as 30 points.
Here is just one of those techniques: If given a sequence of numbers and you have to find the next number and can't see it simply subtract each number from the next number in the sequence and create a new sequence. Repeat until a pattern appears. This can be done in seconds so doesn't waste time and works nearly all the time for sequences in IQ tests.
There are a few particularly dim pupils in some private schools without entrance exams.
There are no particularly dim pupils in grammar schools
There are you know. I taught several when I was teaching in a grammar.
It was not a good place for them. They found keeping up very, very tough.
By particularly dim we mean below average IQ, as I said there are none in grammar schools
Yet another subject about which you clearly know nothing.
But I'll leave it there.
Sorry but you are just not worth it.
Back to someone more interesting ...
Oh I know nothing because I don't accord to your left liberal ideological agenda, well tough I do not care less
Hyufd, it's not that you know nothing. You do know lots of things. Your knowledge of polling is unrivalled. And invaluable.
But at the same time, you do like to pontificate on subjects you don't know much about, and make mistakes as a result. Which isn't illegal. I can think of many posters who would accuse me of doing much the same, quite possibly starting with you (certainly your banned alter ego Justin would). The issue is that you almost never correct mistakes when they're pointed out to you. Which means, you (a) never learn from them and (b) look absolutely ridiculous as a result of your efforts to warp the facts to fit your misconceptions.
As I said before, I didn't find this anything other than irritating when we knew each other in person and I withdrew from your society as a result. Others found it funny. In fact my flatmate (another Simon) got a sort of bizarre pleasure out of trolling you and would frequently regale me, at great length, with your replies.
What's making matters worse for you at the moment is that as a loyal Tory you are trying to defend the truly indefensible even to start.
Just learn some humility. You might even enjoy yourself more.
Except normally humility is a cue for accept the left liberal consensus on x issue, here grammar schools it may be something else because we have extracted one data point we will use to push our point of view.
Which I will not do.
I cannot work out precisely what society you are talking about, I was involved in hiking at Aberystwyth and was a member of the Conservative Society but never its chairman or even on its committee (although I was chairman of the Conservative group when I was at Warwick)
Well, if it helps, it was the Walking Club.
I hadn't made the connection until fairly recently.
ETA Incidentally by 'withdrawing from your society' I meant 'stopped talking to you,' not left the walking club!
Fine but it was never my society, I was only a member of it
It's a small world after all.
At least Wales, with all its scenery, singing and spectacular weather, made enough of a mark to gift him lifelong sympathy with the cause of Welsh nationalism.
Descending from the important questions in the Header to the nakedly partisan - apols - I wonder how a Sunak/Starmer match-up would play to the country? I haven't quite worked myself out a take on this yet. I do probably need to since he looks nailed on if and when 'it' finally happens.
Starmer's only real appeal is that he is the boring-but-competent one against the charismatic but flawed partygate buffoonery of Boris (being generous to Boris there).
Sunak would essentially occupy the same boring-but-competent territory. Which is bad for Starmer.
Except that one has a modicum of working class background and a trusted profession.
The other is the richest person in Parliament and was a banker. Replace the first letter & you have how most people view them.
lawyer who are almost as unloved as bankers.
Utterly untrue as Mike Smithson demonstrated the other day.
IPSOS MORI (One of your two permitted pollsters):
Other professions trusted by more than half of the public include museum curators, the police, lawyers, civil servants, the ordinary man/woman on the street and clergy/priests. Professions with negative net trust ratings include bankers, local councillors, business leaders, professional footballers, estate agents and journalists.
"If Old Labour had bulldozed Eton in the Seventies then almost everyone's life would be better today." Discuss.
"If Old Labour had not bulldozed most of the Grammar schools in the Sixties and Seventies then almost everyone's life would be better today." Discuss
Apart from the people who didn't get into the grammar schools I presume
No, everyone. The presence of those from the working class in positions of power helps everyone.
Apart from the people who didn't get into the grammar schools
Yep appalling institutions
So appalling they produced the highest number of non privately educated people products in our top professions, yes even judges and lawyers had plenty of grammar school alumni. More so than the number who now come from comprehensives
If you got rid of private schools and grammar schools then 100% of our PMs, people in top professions and judges and lawyers would be from comprehensives. Explain that one.
If you got rid of Waitrose, Marks and Spencer and Sainsburys all their customers would have to shop at Tesco, Aldi or Lidl. Explain that one.
I believe in choice for parents as much as consumers
Let me break it down for you.
1. I don't believe we should abolish existing grammar schools.
2. I don't believe we should abolish private schools.
3. However, if we did, then 100% of our 'elite' would be from comprehensives.
I ask again, explain that one?
If you ban private schools, then the ‘elites’ will send their kids to school abroad - just as the elites of many other countries currently aspire to be able to send their kids to school in the UK.
Only a small minority.
My point is that HY quotes statistics without any appreciation of the other factors at play.
We know that comprehensives are better in rich areas and we know that wealth players a big part in children's prospects, regardless of whether you go to a comprehensive or a grammar school.
Therefore simply saying "ah but X% of our 'elite' went to a grammar school" tells us absolutely nothing about the benefit of grammar schools.
It's just bollocks, as usual.
Your point is you are an ideological leftwing socialist who would deny parents the choice of where to send their children and would nationalise much of industry too given the chance.
Yes indeed comprehensives are better in wealthy areas and the left destroyed the best tools of tackling that for a bright child by abolishing the grammar schools that used to exist in inner cities or ex industrial areas or poor seaside towns. So the only ones left are generally in more prosperous areas with Tory councils where comprehensive schools and academies tend to be better anyway so they are less needed.
So we still have selection in state education, just by house price and vicar's reference, not by IQ
Also, grammar schools do not select by IQ. They select by wealth. Only a fool would try to pretend that wealth does not increase your chances of passing entrance exams by better access to learning materials and private tutors.
No, private schools and the best comprehensive schools select by parental wealth or house price (or church attendance).
Grammar schools select by IQ. If you have a low IQ tutoring will not get you through a grammar school entrance exam, if you have a high IQ you will pass a grammar school entrance exam regardless of tutoring
We have been here before also. Yes it will. You can train for IQ tests unless you are particularly dim. I gave you some examples of stuff you could do last time we had this argument. I could easily raise someone's IQ result with training and I had to administer such test for potential employees for one the large computer companies I used to work for. I guessed I could add 10 - 20 points to someone's test, but later in that discussion @rcs1000 posted a link showing the improvement could be as much as 30 points.
Here is just one of those techniques: If given a sequence of numbers and you have to find the next number and can't see it simply subtract each number from the next number in the sequence and create a new sequence. Repeat until a pattern appears. This can be done in seconds so doesn't waste time and works nearly all the time for sequences in IQ tests.
There are a few particularly dim pupils in some private schools without entrance exams.
There are no particularly dim pupils in grammar schools
There are you know. I taught several when I was teaching in a grammar.
It was not a good place for them. They found keeping up very, very tough.
By particularly dim we mean below average IQ, as I said there are none in grammar schools
Yet another subject about which you clearly know nothing.
But I'll leave it there.
Sorry but you are just not worth it.
Back to someone more interesting ...
Oh I know nothing because I don't accord to your left liberal ideological agenda, well tough I do not care less
Hyufd, it's not that you know nothing. You do know lots of things. Your knowledge of polling is unrivalled. And invaluable.
But at the same time, you do like to pontificate on subjects you don't know much about, and make mistakes as a result. Which isn't illegal. I can think of many posters who would accuse me of doing much the same, quite possibly starting with you (certainly your banned alter ego Justin would). The issue is that you almost never correct mistakes when they're pointed out to you. Which means, you (a) never learn from them and (b) look absolutely ridiculous as a result of your efforts to warp the facts to fit your misconceptions.
As I said before, I didn't find this anything other than irritating when we knew each other in person and I withdrew from your society as a result. Others found it funny. In fact my flatmate (another Simon) got a sort of bizarre pleasure out of trolling you and would frequently regale me, at great length, with your replies.
What's making matters worse for you at the moment is that as a loyal Tory you are trying to defend the truly indefensible even to start.
Just learn some humility. You might even enjoy yourself more.
Except normally humility is a cue for accept the left liberal consensus on x issue, here grammar schools it may be something else because we have extracted one data point we will use to push our point of view.
Which I will not do.
I cannot work out precisely what society you are talking about, I was involved in hiking at Aberystwyth and was a member of the Conservative Society but never its chairman or even on its committee (although I was chairman of the Conservative group when I was at Warwick)
Well, if it helps, it was the Walking Club.
I hadn't made the connection until fairly recently.
ETA Incidentally by 'withdrawing from your society' I meant 'stopped talking to you,' not left the walking club!
Fine but it was never my society, I was only a member of it
It's a small world after all.
At least Wales, with all its scenery, singing and spectacular weather, made enough of a mark to gift him lifelong sympathy with the cause of Welsh nationalism.
Jonathan Powell @jnpowell1 Steve Barclay MP as Chief of Staff? Does he resign as an MP? Or is he answerable to Parliament? I can think of no democracy where the chief of staff can also be in the legislature. Thread
Tweet See new Tweets Conversation Tim Shipman @ShippersUnbound JOHNSON'S NEXT PROBLEM: Dominic Cummings is expected to blog on Monday with new evidence he hopes will spark a police inquiry into the funding of the Downing Street flat and what he thinks was a cover up during the probe by Lord Geidt.
Jonathan Powell @jnpowell1 Steve Barclay MP as Chief of Staff? Does he resign as an MP? Or is he answerable to Parliament? I can think of no democracy where the chief of staff can also be in the legislature. Thread
Not grammar schools again, please. The only place I ever come across nostalgia for grammar schools is on PB. They are the past, not the future. Even the Tory Party has shut up about them (apart from in Epping).
UKIP wanted a "grammar school in every town". No other party is interested. Tells you all you need to know. And why? Because the evidence (educational and social mobility) that they do more harm than good is incontrovertible. Trust me.
Not sure why you'd expect anyone to 'trust you', and this post is a collection of sloppy empty clichés, of which 'they are the past not the future' is the emptiest.
Thanks for the rudeness. I've spent the last forty years working in education and educational policy, much of it on data analysis, at a high level. So while I'm pretty ignorant about much, I think I know about this. And guess what? The Tory party doesn't advocate the return of a tertiary system of secondary education.
Any time. I am sure that you have a great deal of knowledge on the subject, but you claimed 'incontrevertible evidence' that grammar schools have done more harm than good. If you have such evidence, why not present it?
The problem with grammar schools is not the grammar schools. Grammar schools, by and large, do a great job of educating kids. The 25% of kids who get into grammar schools do better than the top 25% of kids in comprehensives.
The problem is that the educational outcomes of the people who end up at the secondary moderns is significantly worse than if they had been to comprehensive schools.
And I would argue that the educational system in the UK's big problem for a very long time has been a lack of focus on the 75% of kids who probably shouldn't be going to university. It's ensuring - as they do in Switzerland or Germany - that they get the right skills to succeed.
The grammar discussion is the wrong one. It's a myopic focus on kids who are mostly going to do fine anyway. When the people we should worrying about aren't the people getting good GCSEs and A-Levels.
I'm not sure that the top 25% in the most deprived areas are going to do fine.
So I can see the point of grammar schools in the likes of Knowsley or Hull.
I get that, and I'm not saying 'no selection'. I'm saying the purpose of selection needs to be as much to improve the outcomes of those who don't make it to grammar schools, as those who do.
And right now, poorer kids in selective counties do worse (academically) than those in non-selective counties.
Now, I suspect that this is an artifact of the top 5-10% doing better, but then 80-90% doing quite a lot worse.
And that's a serious problem.
But don't the selective counties counties tend to be the richer ones ?
So you're not comparing like with like.
The poor and dim in the posh areas are a different issue to the poor but clever in the deprived areas.
Descending from the important questions in the Header to the nakedly partisan - apols - I wonder how a Sunak/Starmer match-up would play to the country? I haven't quite worked myself out a take on this yet. I do probably need to since he looks nailed on if and when 'it' finally happens.
Starmer's only real appeal is that he is the boring-but-competent one against the charismatic but flawed partygate buffoonery of Boris (being generous to Boris there).
Sunak would essentially occupy the same boring-but-competent territory. Which is bad for Starmer.
Except that one has a modicum of working class background and a trusted profession.
The other is the richest person in Parliament and was a banker. Replace the first letter & you have how most people view them.
lawyer who are almost as unloved as bankers.
Utterly untrue as Mike Smithson demonstrated the other day.
IPSOS MORI (One of your two permitted pollsters):
Other professions trusted by more than half of the public include museum curators, the police, lawyers, civil servants, the ordinary man/woman on the street and clergy/priests. Professions with negative net trust ratings include bankers, local councillors, business leaders, professional footballers, estate agents and journalists.
"If Old Labour had bulldozed Eton in the Seventies then almost everyone's life would be better today." Discuss.
"If Old Labour had not bulldozed most of the Grammar schools in the Sixties and Seventies then almost everyone's life would be better today." Discuss
Apart from the people who didn't get into the grammar schools I presume
No, everyone. The presence of those from the working class in positions of power helps everyone.
Apart from the people who didn't get into the grammar schools
Yep appalling institutions
So appalling they produced the highest number of non privately educated people products in our top professions, yes even judges and lawyers had plenty of grammar school alumni. More so than the number who now come from comprehensives
If you got rid of private schools and grammar schools then 100% of our PMs, people in top professions and judges and lawyers would be from comprehensives. Explain that one.
If you got rid of Waitrose, Marks and Spencer and Sainsburys all their customers would have to shop at Tesco, Aldi or Lidl. Explain that one.
I believe in choice for parents as much as consumers
Let me break it down for you.
1. I don't believe we should abolish existing grammar schools.
2. I don't believe we should abolish private schools.
3. However, if we did, then 100% of our 'elite' would be from comprehensives.
I ask again, explain that one?
If you ban private schools, then the ‘elites’ will send their kids to school abroad - just as the elites of many other countries currently aspire to be able to send their kids to school in the UK.
Only a small minority.
My point is that HY quotes statistics without any appreciation of the other factors at play.
We know that comprehensives are better in rich areas and we know that wealth players a big part in children's prospects, regardless of whether you go to a comprehensive or a grammar school.
Therefore simply saying "ah but X% of our 'elite' went to a grammar school" tells us absolutely nothing about the benefit of grammar schools.
It's just bollocks, as usual.
Your point is you are an ideological leftwing socialist who would deny parents the choice of where to send their children and would nationalise much of industry too given the chance.
Yes indeed comprehensives are better in wealthy areas and the left destroyed the best tools of tackling that for a bright child by abolishing the grammar schools that used to exist in inner cities or ex industrial areas or poor seaside towns. So the only ones left are generally in more prosperous areas with Tory councils where comprehensive schools and academies tend to be better anyway so they are less needed.
So we still have selection in state education, just by house price and vicar's reference, not by IQ
Also, grammar schools do not select by IQ. They select by wealth. Only a fool would try to pretend that wealth does not increase your chances of passing entrance exams by better access to learning materials and private tutors.
No, private schools and the best comprehensive schools select by parental wealth or house price (or church attendance).
Grammar schools select by IQ. If you have a low IQ tutoring will not get you through a grammar school entrance exam, if you have a high IQ you will pass a grammar school entrance exam regardless of tutoring
We have been here before also. Yes it will. You can train for IQ tests unless you are particularly dim. I gave you some examples of stuff you could do last time we had this argument. I could easily raise someone's IQ result with training and I had to administer such test for potential employees for one the large computer companies I used to work for. I guessed I could add 10 - 20 points to someone's test, but later in that discussion @rcs1000 posted a link showing the improvement could be as much as 30 points.
Here is just one of those techniques: If given a sequence of numbers and you have to find the next number and can't see it simply subtract each number from the next number in the sequence and create a new sequence. Repeat until a pattern appears. This can be done in seconds so doesn't waste time and works nearly all the time for sequences in IQ tests.
There are a few particularly dim pupils in some private schools without entrance exams.
There are no particularly dim pupils in grammar schools
There are you know. I taught several when I was teaching in a grammar.
It was not a good place for them. They found keeping up very, very tough.
By particularly dim we mean below average IQ, as I said there are none in grammar schools
Yet another subject about which you clearly know nothing.
But I'll leave it there.
Sorry but you are just not worth it.
Back to someone more interesting ...
Oh I know nothing because I don't accord to your left liberal ideological agenda, well tough I do not care less
Hyufd, it's not that you know nothing. You do know lots of things. Your knowledge of polling is unrivalled. And invaluable.
But at the same time, you do like to pontificate on subjects you don't know much about, and make mistakes as a result. Which isn't illegal. I can think of many posters who would accuse me of doing much the same, quite possibly starting with you (certainly your banned alter ego Justin would). The issue is that you almost never correct mistakes when they're pointed out to you. Which means, you (a) never learn from them and (b) look absolutely ridiculous as a result of your efforts to warp the facts to fit your misconceptions.
As I said before, I didn't find this anything other than irritating when we knew each other in person and I withdrew from your society as a result. Others found it funny. In fact my flatmate (another Simon) got a sort of bizarre pleasure out of trolling you and would frequently regale me, at great length, with your replies.
What's making matters worse for you at the moment is that as a loyal Tory you are trying to defend the truly indefensible even to start.
Just learn some humility. You might even enjoy yourself more.
I share some of your opinions of @HYUFD, in particular an occasional admission of being wrong is something he should consider.
Some of your post however is a bit close to Doxxing, and like many others who use pseudonyms here, something that makes me a bit uncomfortable.
I think @HYUFD has disclosed his identity on the board before, no?
A few things but not fully.
Charles we know was identified against his will and has sadly now departed the site (albeit Charles is a rather higher profile figure than me)
Charles has been absolutely candid about his identity over many years, but resented it being crudely used against him. He brought a unique point of view to the site and I for one hope he eventually returns.
Some of his comments left me astounded. The very notion that there are people in the world who think like that. Resulting in some recalibration on my part.
Not grammar schools again, please. The only place I ever come across nostalgia for grammar schools is on PB. They are the past, not the future. Even the Tory Party has shut up about them (apart from in Epping).
UKIP wanted a "grammar school in every town". No other party is interested. Tells you all you need to know. And why? Because the evidence (educational and social mobility) that they do more harm than good is incontrovertible. Trust me.
Not sure why you'd expect anyone to 'trust you', and this post is a collection of sloppy empty clichés, of which 'they are the past not the future' is the emptiest.
Thanks for the rudeness. I've spent the last forty years working in education and educational policy, much of it on data analysis, at a high level. So while I'm pretty ignorant about much, I think I know about this. And guess what? The Tory party doesn't advocate the return of a tertiary system of secondary education.
Any time. I am sure that you have a great deal of knowledge on the subject, but you claimed 'incontrevertible evidence' that grammar schools have done more harm than good. If you have such evidence, why not present it?
The problem with grammar schools is not the grammar schools. Grammar schools, by and large, do a great job of educating kids. The 25% of kids who get into grammar schools do better than the top 25% of kids in comprehensives.
The problem is that the educational outcomes of the people who end up at the secondary moderns is significantly worse than if they had been to comprehensive schools.
And I would argue that the educational system in the UK's big problem for a very long time has been a lack of focus on the 75% of kids who probably shouldn't be going to university. It's ensuring - as they do in Switzerland or Germany - that they get the right skills to succeed.
The grammar discussion is the wrong one. It's a myopic focus on kids who are mostly going to do fine anyway. When the people we should worrying about aren't the people getting good GCSEs and A-Levels.
I'm not sure that the top 25% in the most deprived areas are going to do fine.
So I can see the point of grammar schools in the likes of Knowsley or Hull.
I get that, and I'm not saying 'no selection'. I'm saying the purpose of selection needs to be as much to improve the outcomes of those who don't make it to grammar schools, as those who do.
And right now, poorer kids in selective counties do worse (academically) than those in non-selective counties.
Now, I suspect that this is an artifact of the top 5-10% doing better, but then 80-90% doing quite a lot worse.
And that's a serious problem.
But don't the selective counties counties tend to be the richer ones ?
So you're not comparing like with like.
The poor and dim in the posh areas are a different issue to the poor but clever in the deprived areas.
Steve Barclay @SteveBarclay · 3h It is an honour to have been asked by the PM to serve as Chief of Staff for No10 Downing Street alongside my responsibilities in the Cabinet Office.
===
Yeh, right.
There's no way he can do this job sensibly with two other roles. So just a shite decision or set up to fail for some reason in Carrie's head?
Has @Charles left due to doxxing? Not cool if so. Although he was one who would have been easier to identify if one was so inclined. But that's no excuse. I hope he returns.
Jonathan Powell @jnpowell1 Steve Barclay MP as Chief of Staff? Does he resign as an MP? Or is he answerable to Parliament? I can think of no democracy where the chief of staff can also be in the legislature. Thread
Not grammar schools again, please. The only place I ever come across nostalgia for grammar schools is on PB. They are the past, not the future. Even the Tory Party has shut up about them (apart from in Epping).
UKIP wanted a "grammar school in every town". No other party is interested. Tells you all you need to know. And why? Because the evidence (educational and social mobility) that they do more harm than good is incontrovertible. Trust me.
Not sure why you'd expect anyone to 'trust you', and this post is a collection of sloppy empty clichés, of which 'they are the past not the future' is the emptiest.
Thanks for the rudeness. I've spent the last forty years working in education and educational policy, much of it on data analysis, at a high level. So while I'm pretty ignorant about much, I think I know about this. And guess what? The Tory party doesn't advocate the return of a tertiary system of secondary education.
Any time. I am sure that you have a great deal of knowledge on the subject, but you claimed 'incontrevertible evidence' that grammar schools have done more harm than good. If you have such evidence, why not present it?
The problem with grammar schools is not the grammar schools. Grammar schools, by and large, do a great job of educating kids. The 25% of kids who get into grammar schools do better than the top 25% of kids in comprehensives.
The problem is that the educational outcomes of the people who end up at the secondary moderns is significantly worse than if they had been to comprehensive schools.
And I would argue that the educational system in the UK's big problem for a very long time has been a lack of focus on the 75% of kids who probably shouldn't be going to university. It's ensuring - as they do in Switzerland or Germany - that they get the right skills to succeed.
The grammar discussion is the wrong one. It's a myopic focus on kids who are mostly going to do fine anyway. When the people we should worrying about aren't the people getting good GCSEs and A-Levels.
Germany has grammar schools, gymnasiums, it also has excellent technical and vocational skills in other schools
The point I'm making is not that there shouldn't be selection (although I suspect 13/14 is a better age than 11), but that the British system fails those who don't go down the academic/grammar route.
As a country, we do a poor job getting the right skills to people who are in the bottom 60%. And that problem is worse in grammar school areas.
This discussion should be 'how do we improve the outcomes for the bottom 60% of students'?
Because that is where the UK is failing.
Exactly. Grammar Schools were never the problem. The problem was Secondary Moderns. The simplest way to get rid of Secondary Moderns was to do away with Grammar Schools.
Maybe if we'd had a bunch of exercises for children at the end of primary, designed to test their aptitude for learning technical/practical/vocational skills, and sent the kids who passed into prestigious technical schools - and let the kids who "failed" do book-learning - we would have ended up in a better place.
What we should have done was improve Secondary Moderns.
I am interested in your prospectus for that idea.
It wasn't that the majority of Secondary School Heads decided they weren't going to bother making an effort.
The system was faulty, and when PM HYUFD reintroduces Secondary Modern education it will still be faulty, as is the general principle of selection at 11.
Has @Charles left due to doxxing? Not cool if so. Although he was one who would have been easier to identify if one was so inclined. But that's no excuse. I hope he returns.
I hope he returns too but tbf, if he mentioned 'his family' once, he must have mentioned it 100 times.
He was open about his father's identity when the latter sadly passed away a year or so ago, even posting a link to The Times obituary IIRC, so I hardly think he took steps to conceal his identity in any way.
Not grammar schools again, please. The only place I ever come across nostalgia for grammar schools is on PB. They are the past, not the future. Even the Tory Party has shut up about them (apart from in Epping).
UKIP wanted a "grammar school in every town". No other party is interested. Tells you all you need to know. And why? Because the evidence (educational and social mobility) that they do more harm than good is incontrovertible. Trust me.
Not sure why you'd expect anyone to 'trust you', and this post is a collection of sloppy empty clichés, of which 'they are the past not the future' is the emptiest.
Thanks for the rudeness. I've spent the last forty years working in education and educational policy, much of it on data analysis, at a high level. So while I'm pretty ignorant about much, I think I know about this. And guess what? The Tory party doesn't advocate the return of a tertiary system of secondary education.
Any time. I am sure that you have a great deal of knowledge on the subject, but you claimed 'incontrevertible evidence' that grammar schools have done more harm than good. If you have such evidence, why not present it?
The problem with grammar schools is not the grammar schools. Grammar schools, by and large, do a great job of educating kids. The 25% of kids who get into grammar schools do better than the top 25% of kids in comprehensives.
The problem is that the educational outcomes of the people who end up at the secondary moderns is significantly worse than if they had been to comprehensive schools.
And I would argue that the educational system in the UK's big problem for a very long time has been a lack of focus on the 75% of kids who probably shouldn't be going to university. It's ensuring - as they do in Switzerland or Germany - that they get the right skills to succeed.
The grammar discussion is the wrong one. It's a myopic focus on kids who are mostly going to do fine anyway. When the people we should worrying about aren't the people getting good GCSEs and A-Levels.
Germany has grammar schools, gymnasiums, it also has excellent technical and vocational skills in other schools
The point I'm making is not that there shouldn't be selection (although I suspect 13/14 is a better age than 11), but that the British system fails those who don't go down the academic/grammar route.
As a country, we do a poor job getting the right skills to people who are in the bottom 60%. And that problem is worse in grammar school areas.
This discussion should be 'how do we improve the outcomes for the bottom 60% of students'?
Because that is where the UK is failing.
Exactly. Grammar Schools were never the problem. The problem was Secondary Moderns. The simplest way to get rid of Secondary Moderns was to do away with Grammar Schools.
Maybe if we'd had a bunch of exercises for children at the end of primary, designed to test their aptitude for learning technical/practical/vocational skills, and sent the kids who passed into prestigious technical schools - and let the kids who "failed" do book-learning - we would have ended up in a better place.
What we should have done was improve Secondary Moderns.
Weren't they originally Grammar, Technical and Secondary Modern? Or was that not widespread?
Not grammar schools again, please. The only place I ever come across nostalgia for grammar schools is on PB. They are the past, not the future. Even the Tory Party has shut up about them (apart from in Epping).
UKIP wanted a "grammar school in every town". No other party is interested. Tells you all you need to know. And why? Because the evidence (educational and social mobility) that they do more harm than good is incontrovertible. Trust me.
Not sure why you'd expect anyone to 'trust you', and this post is a collection of sloppy empty clichés, of which 'they are the past not the future' is the emptiest.
Thanks for the rudeness. I've spent the last forty years working in education and educational policy, much of it on data analysis, at a high level. So while I'm pretty ignorant about much, I think I know about this. And guess what? The Tory party doesn't advocate the return of a tertiary system of secondary education.
Any time. I am sure that you have a great deal of knowledge on the subject, but you claimed 'incontrevertible evidence' that grammar schools have done more harm than good. If you have such evidence, why not present it?
The problem with grammar schools is not the grammar schools. Grammar schools, by and large, do a great job of educating kids. The 25% of kids who get into grammar schools do better than the top 25% of kids in comprehensives.
The problem is that the educational outcomes of the people who end up at the secondary moderns is significantly worse than if they had been to comprehensive schools.
And I would argue that the educational system in the UK's big problem for a very long time has been a lack of focus on the 75% of kids who probably shouldn't be going to university. It's ensuring - as they do in Switzerland or Germany - that they get the right skills to succeed.
The grammar discussion is the wrong one. It's a myopic focus on kids who are mostly going to do fine anyway. When the people we should worrying about aren't the people getting good GCSEs and A-Levels.
I'm not sure that the top 25% in the most deprived areas are going to do fine.
So I can see the point of grammar schools in the likes of Knowsley or Hull.
I get that, and I'm not saying 'no selection'. I'm saying the purpose of selection needs to be as much to improve the outcomes of those who don't make it to grammar schools, as those who do.
And right now, poorer kids in selective counties do worse (academically) than those in non-selective counties.
Now, I suspect that this is an artifact of the top 5-10% doing better, but then 80-90% doing quite a lot worse.
And that's a serious problem.
But don't the selective counties counties tend to be the richer ones ?
So you're not comparing like with like.
The poor and dim in the posh areas are a different issue to the poor but clever in the deprived areas.
Wtaf are you trying to say?
That the issue of poor but clever kids in deprived areas in different to poor and dim kids in posh areas.
And that grammar schools may be of increasing use the more deprived an area is but may have increasingly negative effects the richer an area is.
Whereas in this country it tends to be the more affluent areas which have grammar schools.
So if my hypothesis is correct we've managed to get grammar schools in the wrong places.
Not grammar schools again, please. The only place I ever come across nostalgia for grammar schools is on PB. They are the past, not the future. Even the Tory Party has shut up about them (apart from in Epping).
UKIP wanted a "grammar school in every town". No other party is interested. Tells you all you need to know. And why? Because the evidence (educational and social mobility) that they do more harm than good is incontrovertible. Trust me.
Not sure why you'd expect anyone to 'trust you', and this post is a collection of sloppy empty clichés, of which 'they are the past not the future' is the emptiest.
Thanks for the rudeness. I've spent the last forty years working in education and educational policy, much of it on data analysis, at a high level. So while I'm pretty ignorant about much, I think I know about this. And guess what? The Tory party doesn't advocate the return of a tertiary system of secondary education.
Any time. I am sure that you have a great deal of knowledge on the subject, but you claimed 'incontrevertible evidence' that grammar schools have done more harm than good. If you have such evidence, why not present it?
The problem with grammar schools is not the grammar schools. Grammar schools, by and large, do a great job of educating kids. The 25% of kids who get into grammar schools do better than the top 25% of kids in comprehensives.
The problem is that the educational outcomes of the people who end up at the secondary moderns is significantly worse than if they had been to comprehensive schools.
And I would argue that the educational system in the UK's big problem for a very long time has been a lack of focus on the 75% of kids who probably shouldn't be going to university. It's ensuring - as they do in Switzerland or Germany - that they get the right skills to succeed.
The grammar discussion is the wrong one. It's a myopic focus on kids who are mostly going to do fine anyway. When the people we should worrying about aren't the people getting good GCSEs and A-Levels.
I care about the people who would have done well at grammar schools but don't at comprehensive schools (for various reasons).
Everyone learns differently, and there is no perfect system. Anyone who says "grammars are perfect" or "comprehensives are perfect" is an idiot.
But I think @LostPassword gets it right below. The vocational option has to be at least as an attractive as the grammar one, otherwise all we're doing is worsening the UK's existing problem: that we have a very large number of people without the right skills to survive in a modern economy.
And that has impacts beyond just the individual. It means that if I wanted to to setup a manufacturing plant I'd probably choose Dresden, not Darlington. Our education system doesn't just fail the bottom 60% of pupils, it fails our country too.
And the myopic fixation on grammar schools as a catch all solution to educational issues is scary beyond belief.
Agree. But that fixation on grammar schools is not widely spread beyond a few on PB. As I've asked before, why is it that no Tory government, going back to Thatcher, has seriously tried to expand grammar schools and re-institute the tripartite system? Because a) they know it wouldn't improve educational outcomes overall, and b) because they know it would be unpopular with the c. 80% of the cohort's parent who don't get into grammar schools.
I agree Sunak's chances are also being overstated; he's currently the 'heir apparent' and that doesn't tend to bode well in Tory leadership contests.
I'm a little suprised Sajid Javid isn't spoken about more. He's held a number of cabinet posts - basically all the big ones except foreign secretary and PM. Two of these posts, Home Secretary and Health Secretary, were to steady the ship after his predicessors, Rudd and Hancock, presided over scandals. The Tories might consider whether he could do the same for Number 10.
For what will be an exclusively Tory electorate that may not be entirely predisposed to the machinations of Dominic Cummings, Javid has the street cred of having quit as Chancellor rather than meet Dom's demands, while also being a loyal enough Tory later to return to serve at a safer distance from Johnson. He's also a safe bet not to have been at any all-night raves during lockdown.
The case against him for Tory MPs and members is that he seems to have been supportive of an Omicron lockdown, but that can be chalked down to him being Health Secretary at the time and you tend to speak in your department's interests (just as every Home Secretary wants less immigration, and every Business Secretary wants more).
He may not be naturally charismatic, but frankly neither is Starmer.
Steve Barclay @SteveBarclay · 3h It is an honour to have been asked by the PM to serve as Chief of Staff for No10 Downing Street alongside my responsibilities in the Cabinet Office.
===
Yeh, right.
There's no way he can do this job sensibly with two other roles. So just a shite decision or set up to fail for some reason in Carrie's head?
My assumption is that Barclay was chosen because the only available candidates were identified amongst the fraction of Tory MPs that are still biddable. Presumably all the other potential appointments wouldn't want to work with Johnson on two grounds: (1) the job might not last more than a few days, and (2) everyone now has a pretty good idea of what kind of a creature he is.
Jonathan Powell @jnpowell1 Steve Barclay MP as Chief of Staff? Does he resign as an MP? Or is he answerable to Parliament? I can think of no democracy where the chief of staff can also be in the legislature. Thread
Queen Consort, only a female monarch is a Queen and plenty of monarchs over the ages were adulterers, as indeed have been a number of Presidents in other nations.
Camilla is also no longer that unpopular. Indeed in 2014 53% of voters wanted her to be Queen Consort, only 32% opposed
According to that article, Amersi paid £100,000 to have breakfast with Boris Johnson.
I'd happily pay £10 not to have breakfast with Boris Johnson.
Amersi seems to be complaining that he has paid the Tories for various preferments and they have not delivered, so should return his 'donations'. Or have I got that wrong?
Not grammar schools again, please. The only place I ever come across nostalgia for grammar schools is on PB. They are the past, not the future. Even the Tory Party has shut up about them (apart from in Epping).
UKIP wanted a "grammar school in every town". No other party is interested. Tells you all you need to know. And why? Because the evidence (educational and social mobility) that they do more harm than good is incontrovertible. Trust me.
Not sure why you'd expect anyone to 'trust you', and this post is a collection of sloppy empty clichés, of which 'they are the past not the future' is the emptiest.
Thanks for the rudeness. I've spent the last forty years working in education and educational policy, much of it on data analysis, at a high level. So while I'm pretty ignorant about much, I think I know about this. And guess what? The Tory party doesn't advocate the return of a tertiary system of secondary education.
Any time. I am sure that you have a great deal of knowledge on the subject, but you claimed 'incontrevertible evidence' that grammar schools have done more harm than good. If you have such evidence, why not present it?
The problem with grammar schools is not the grammar schools. Grammar schools, by and large, do a great job of educating kids. The 25% of kids who get into grammar schools do better than the top 25% of kids in comprehensives.
The problem is that the educational outcomes of the people who end up at the secondary moderns is significantly worse than if they had been to comprehensive schools.
And I would argue that the educational system in the UK's big problem for a very long time has been a lack of focus on the 75% of kids who probably shouldn't be going to university. It's ensuring - as they do in Switzerland or Germany - that they get the right skills to succeed.
The grammar discussion is the wrong one. It's a myopic focus on kids who are mostly going to do fine anyway. When the people we should worrying about aren't the people getting good GCSEs and A-Levels.
Germany has grammar schools, gymnasiums, it also has excellent technical and vocational skills in other schools
The point I'm making is not that there shouldn't be selection (although I suspect 13/14 is a better age than 11), but that the British system fails those who don't go down the academic/grammar route.
As a country, we do a poor job getting the right skills to people who are in the bottom 60%. And that problem is worse in grammar school areas.
This discussion should be 'how do we improve the outcomes for the bottom 60% of students'?
Because that is where the UK is failing.
Exactly. Grammar Schools were never the problem. The problem was Secondary Moderns. The simplest way to get rid of Secondary Moderns was to do away with Grammar Schools.
Maybe if we'd had a bunch of exercises for children at the end of primary, designed to test their aptitude for learning technical/practical/vocational skills, and sent the kids who passed into prestigious technical schools - and let the kids who "failed" do book-learning - we would have ended up in a better place.
What we should have done was improve Secondary Moderns.
Weren't they originally Grammar, Technical and Secondary Modern? Or was that not widespread?
That was the original tripartite plan, but the technical schools never really took off apart from in a few areas - e.g. Leicestershire, if I remember correctly, had a proper tripartite system.
I agree Sunak's chances are also being overstated; he's currently the 'heir apparent' and that doesn't tend to bode well in Tory leadership contests.
I'm a little suprised Sajid Javid isn't spoken about more - he's held a number of cabinet posts - basically all the big ones except foreign secretary and PM. Two of these posts - Home Secretary and Health Secretary - were to steady the ship after his predicessors, Rudd and Hancock, presided over scandals - the Tories might consider whether he could do the same for Number 10.
For what will be an exclusively Tory electorate that may not be entirely predisposed to the machinations of Dominic Cummings, Javid has the street cred of having quit as Chancellor rather than meet Dom's demands, while also being a loyal enough Tory later to return to serve at a safer distance from Johnson. He's also a safe bet not to have been at any all-night raves during lockdown.
The case against him for Tory MPs and members is that he seems to have been supportive of an Omicron lockdown, but that can be chalked down to him being Health Secretary at the time and you tend to speak in your department's interests (just as every Home Secretary wants less immigration, and every Business Secretary wants more).
He may not be naturally charismatic, but frankly neither is Starmer.
An election between Javid and Starmer would have us looking to Ed Davey for some pizazz.
Queen Consort, only a female monarch is a Queen and plenty of monarchs over the ages were adulterers, as indeed have been a number of Presidents in other nations
I wonder if we'll all be under pressure to call her Queen Consort?
Only if she changes her name from Camilla to Consort.
Not grammar schools again, please. The only place I ever come across nostalgia for grammar schools is on PB. They are the past, not the future. Even the Tory Party has shut up about them (apart from in Epping).
UKIP wanted a "grammar school in every town". No other party is interested. Tells you all you need to know. And why? Because the evidence (educational and social mobility) that they do more harm than good is incontrovertible. Trust me.
Not sure why you'd expect anyone to 'trust you', and this post is a collection of sloppy empty clichés, of which 'they are the past not the future' is the emptiest.
Thanks for the rudeness. I've spent the last forty years working in education and educational policy, much of it on data analysis, at a high level. So while I'm pretty ignorant about much, I think I know about this. And guess what? The Tory party doesn't advocate the return of a tertiary system of secondary education.
Any time. I am sure that you have a great deal of knowledge on the subject, but you claimed 'incontrevertible evidence' that grammar schools have done more harm than good. If you have such evidence, why not present it?
The problem with grammar schools is not the grammar schools. Grammar schools, by and large, do a great job of educating kids. The 25% of kids who get into grammar schools do better than the top 25% of kids in comprehensives.
The problem is that the educational outcomes of the people who end up at the secondary moderns is significantly worse than if they had been to comprehensive schools.
And I would argue that the educational system in the UK's big problem for a very long time has been a lack of focus on the 75% of kids who probably shouldn't be going to university. It's ensuring - as they do in Switzerland or Germany - that they get the right skills to succeed.
The grammar discussion is the wrong one. It's a myopic focus on kids who are mostly going to do fine anyway. When the people we should worrying about aren't the people getting good GCSEs and A-Levels.
I care about the people who would have done well at grammar schools but don't at comprehensive schools (for various reasons).
Everyone learns differently, and there is no perfect system. Anyone who says "grammars are perfect" or "comprehensives are perfect" is an idiot.
But I think @LostPassword gets it right below. The vocational option has to be at least as an attractive as the grammar one, otherwise all we're doing is worsening the UK's existing problem: that we have a very large number of people without the right skills to survive in a modern economy.
And that has impacts beyond just the individual. It means that if I wanted to to setup a manufacturing plant I'd probably choose Dresden, not Darlington. Our education system doesn't just fail the bottom 60% of pupils, it fails our country too.
And the myopic fixation on grammar schools as a catch all solution to educational issues is scary beyond belief.
Agree. But that fixation on grammar schools is not widely spread beyond a few on PB. As I've asked before, why is it that no Tory government, going back to Thatcher, has seriously tried to expand grammar schools and re-institute the tripartite system? Because a) they know it wouldn't improve educational outcomes overall, and b) because they know it would be unpopular with the c. 80% of the cohort's parent who don't get into grammar schools.
Because they can't be bothered, because most Tory politicians pay to send their children to private school anyway.
Not grammar schools again, please. The only place I ever come across nostalgia for grammar schools is on PB. They are the past, not the future. Even the Tory Party has shut up about them (apart from in Epping).
UKIP wanted a "grammar school in every town". No other party is interested. Tells you all you need to know. And why? Because the evidence (educational and social mobility) that they do more harm than good is incontrovertible. Trust me.
Not sure why you'd expect anyone to 'trust you', and this post is a collection of sloppy empty clichés, of which 'they are the past not the future' is the emptiest.
Thanks for the rudeness. I've spent the last forty years working in education and educational policy, much of it on data analysis, at a high level. So while I'm pretty ignorant about much, I think I know about this. And guess what? The Tory party doesn't advocate the return of a tertiary system of secondary education.
Any time. I am sure that you have a great deal of knowledge on the subject, but you claimed 'incontrevertible evidence' that grammar schools have done more harm than good. If you have such evidence, why not present it?
The problem with grammar schools is not the grammar schools. Grammar schools, by and large, do a great job of educating kids. The 25% of kids who get into grammar schools do better than the top 25% of kids in comprehensives.
The problem is that the educational outcomes of the people who end up at the secondary moderns is significantly worse than if they had been to comprehensive schools.
And I would argue that the educational system in the UK's big problem for a very long time has been a lack of focus on the 75% of kids who probably shouldn't be going to university. It's ensuring - as they do in Switzerland or Germany - that they get the right skills to succeed.
The grammar discussion is the wrong one. It's a myopic focus on kids who are mostly going to do fine anyway. When the people we should worrying about aren't the people getting good GCSEs and A-Levels.
I'm not sure that the top 25% in the most deprived areas are going to do fine.
So I can see the point of grammar schools in the likes of Knowsley or Hull.
I get that, and I'm not saying 'no selection'. I'm saying the purpose of selection needs to be as much to improve the outcomes of those who don't make it to grammar schools, as those who do.
And right now, poorer kids in selective counties do worse (academically) than those in non-selective counties.
Now, I suspect that this is an artifact of the top 5-10% doing better, but then 80-90% doing quite a lot worse.
And that's a serious problem.
But don't the selective counties counties tend to be the richer ones ?
So you're not comparing like with like.
The poor and dim in the posh areas are a different issue to the poor but clever in the deprived areas.
Wtaf are you trying to say?
That the issue of poor but clever kids in deprived areas in different to poor and dim kids in posh areas.
And that grammar schools may be of increasing use the more deprived an area is but may have increasingly negative effects the richer an area is.
Whereas in this country it tends to be the more affluent areas which have grammar schools.
So if my hypothesis is correct we've managed to get grammar schools in the wrong places.
Hmm. So the only reason that Grammars have failed is that they've not been tried properly...🤔
Not grammar schools again, please. The only place I ever come across nostalgia for grammar schools is on PB. They are the past, not the future. Even the Tory Party has shut up about them (apart from in Epping).
UKIP wanted a "grammar school in every town". No other party is interested. Tells you all you need to know. And why? Because the evidence (educational and social mobility) that they do more harm than good is incontrovertible. Trust me.
Not sure why you'd expect anyone to 'trust you', and this post is a collection of sloppy empty clichés, of which 'they are the past not the future' is the emptiest.
Thanks for the rudeness. I've spent the last forty years working in education and educational policy, much of it on data analysis, at a high level. So while I'm pretty ignorant about much, I think I know about this. And guess what? The Tory party doesn't advocate the return of a tertiary system of secondary education.
Any time. I am sure that you have a great deal of knowledge on the subject, but you claimed 'incontrevertible evidence' that grammar schools have done more harm than good. If you have such evidence, why not present it?
The problem with grammar schools is not the grammar schools. Grammar schools, by and large, do a great job of educating kids. The 25% of kids who get into grammar schools do better than the top 25% of kids in comprehensives.
The problem is that the educational outcomes of the people who end up at the secondary moderns is significantly worse than if they had been to comprehensive schools.
And I would argue that the educational system in the UK's big problem for a very long time has been a lack of focus on the 75% of kids who probably shouldn't be going to university. It's ensuring - as they do in Switzerland or Germany - that they get the right skills to succeed.
The grammar discussion is the wrong one. It's a myopic focus on kids who are mostly going to do fine anyway. When the people we should worrying about aren't the people getting good GCSEs and A-Levels.
I'm not sure that the top 25% in the most deprived areas are going to do fine.
So I can see the point of grammar schools in the likes of Knowsley or Hull.
I get that, and I'm not saying 'no selection'. I'm saying the purpose of selection needs to be as much to improve the outcomes of those who don't make it to grammar schools, as those who do.
And right now, poorer kids in selective counties do worse (academically) than those in non-selective counties.
Now, I suspect that this is an artifact of the top 5-10% doing better, but then 80-90% doing quite a lot worse.
And that's a serious problem.
But don't the selective counties counties tend to be the richer ones ?
So you're not comparing like with like.
The poor and dim in the posh areas are a different issue to the poor but clever in the deprived areas.
Wtaf are you trying to say?
That the issue of poor but clever kids in deprived areas in different to poor and dim kids in posh areas.
And that grammar schools may be of increasing use the more deprived an area is but may have increasingly negative effects the richer an area is.
Whereas in this country it tends to be the more affluent areas which have grammar schools.
So if my hypothesis is correct we've managed to get grammar schools in the wrong places.
Hmm. So the only reason that Grammars have failed is that they've not been tried properly...🤔
Grammars never failed, even if secondary moderns might have
Queen Consort, only a female monarch is a Queen and plenty of monarchs over the ages were adulterers, as indeed have been a number of Presidents in other nations.
Camilla is also no longer that unpopular. Indeed in 2014 53% of voters wanted her to be Queen Consort, only 32% opposed
Not grammar schools again, please. The only place I ever come across nostalgia for grammar schools is on PB. They are the past, not the future. Even the Tory Party has shut up about them (apart from in Epping).
UKIP wanted a "grammar school in every town". No other party is interested. Tells you all you need to know. And why? Because the evidence (educational and social mobility) that they do more harm than good is incontrovertible. Trust me.
Not sure why you'd expect anyone to 'trust you', and this post is a collection of sloppy empty clichés, of which 'they are the past not the future' is the emptiest.
Thanks for the rudeness. I've spent the last forty years working in education and educational policy, much of it on data analysis, at a high level. So while I'm pretty ignorant about much, I think I know about this. And guess what? The Tory party doesn't advocate the return of a tertiary system of secondary education.
Any time. I am sure that you have a great deal of knowledge on the subject, but you claimed 'incontrevertible evidence' that grammar schools have done more harm than good. If you have such evidence, why not present it?
The problem with grammar schools is not the grammar schools. Grammar schools, by and large, do a great job of educating kids. The 25% of kids who get into grammar schools do better than the top 25% of kids in comprehensives.
The problem is that the educational outcomes of the people who end up at the secondary moderns is significantly worse than if they had been to comprehensive schools.
And I would argue that the educational system in the UK's big problem for a very long time has been a lack of focus on the 75% of kids who probably shouldn't be going to university. It's ensuring - as they do in Switzerland or Germany - that they get the right skills to succeed.
The grammar discussion is the wrong one. It's a myopic focus on kids who are mostly going to do fine anyway. When the people we should worrying about aren't the people getting good GCSEs and A-Levels.
I care about the people who would have done well at grammar schools but don't at comprehensive schools (for various reasons).
Everyone learns differently, and there is no perfect system. Anyone who says "grammars are perfect" or "comprehensives are perfect" is an idiot.
But I think @LostPassword gets it right below. The vocational option has to be at least as an attractive as the grammar one, otherwise all we're doing is worsening the UK's existing problem: that we have a very large number of people without the right skills to survive in a modern economy.
And that has impacts beyond just the individual. It means that if I wanted to to setup a manufacturing plant I'd probably choose Dresden, not Darlington. Our education system doesn't just fail the bottom 60% of pupils, it fails our country too.
And the myopic fixation on grammar schools as a catch all solution to educational issues is scary beyond belief.
Agree. But that fixation on grammar schools is not widely spread beyond a few on PB. As I've asked before, why is it that no Tory government, going back to Thatcher, has seriously tried to expand grammar schools and re-institute the tripartite system? Because a) they know it wouldn't improve educational outcomes overall, and b) because they know it would be unpopular with the c. 80% of the cohort's parent who don't get into grammar schools.
Because they can't be bothered, because most Tory politicians pay to send their children to private school anyway.
Most Tory politicians have private health care I would imagine, but they haven't abandoned the NHS. Or have they?
Not grammar schools again, please. The only place I ever come across nostalgia for grammar schools is on PB. They are the past, not the future. Even the Tory Party has shut up about them (apart from in Epping).
UKIP wanted a "grammar school in every town". No other party is interested. Tells you all you need to know. And why? Because the evidence (educational and social mobility) that they do more harm than good is incontrovertible. Trust me.
Not sure why you'd expect anyone to 'trust you', and this post is a collection of sloppy empty clichés, of which 'they are the past not the future' is the emptiest.
Thanks for the rudeness. I've spent the last forty years working in education and educational policy, much of it on data analysis, at a high level. So while I'm pretty ignorant about much, I think I know about this. And guess what? The Tory party doesn't advocate the return of a tertiary system of secondary education.
Any time. I am sure that you have a great deal of knowledge on the subject, but you claimed 'incontrevertible evidence' that grammar schools have done more harm than good. If you have such evidence, why not present it?
The problem with grammar schools is not the grammar schools. Grammar schools, by and large, do a great job of educating kids. The 25% of kids who get into grammar schools do better than the top 25% of kids in comprehensives.
The problem is that the educational outcomes of the people who end up at the secondary moderns is significantly worse than if they had been to comprehensive schools.
And I would argue that the educational system in the UK's big problem for a very long time has been a lack of focus on the 75% of kids who probably shouldn't be going to university. It's ensuring - as they do in Switzerland or Germany - that they get the right skills to succeed.
The grammar discussion is the wrong one. It's a myopic focus on kids who are mostly going to do fine anyway. When the people we should worrying about aren't the people getting good GCSEs and A-Levels.
Germany has grammar schools, gymnasiums, it also has excellent technical and vocational skills in other schools
The point I'm making is not that there shouldn't be selection (although I suspect 13/14 is a better age than 11), but that the British system fails those who don't go down the academic/grammar route.
As a country, we do a poor job getting the right skills to people who are in the bottom 60%. And that problem is worse in grammar school areas.
This discussion should be 'how do we improve the outcomes for the bottom 60% of students'?
Because that is where the UK is failing.
Exactly. Grammar Schools were never the problem. The problem was Secondary Moderns. The simplest way to get rid of Secondary Moderns was to do away with Grammar Schools.
Maybe if we'd had a bunch of exercises for children at the end of primary, designed to test their aptitude for learning technical/practical/vocational skills, and sent the kids who passed into prestigious technical schools - and let the kids who "failed" do book-learning - we would have ended up in a better place.
What we should have done was improve Secondary Moderns.
I am interested in your prospectus for that idea.
It wasn't that the majority of Secondary School Heads decided they weren't going to bother making an effort.
The system was faulty, and when PM HYUFD reintroduces Secondary Modern education it will still be faulty, as is the general principle of selection at 11.
Agree strongly. It is selection at 11 that is the big issue. It is also an issue selecting based upon the the ability of a person across a range of subjects when pupils could be talented in maths or engineering or music, or languages, or music, or sport, etc or crap in any of them and we are selecting based upon an average result which is bonkers.
Not grammar schools again, please. The only place I ever come across nostalgia for grammar schools is on PB. They are the past, not the future. Even the Tory Party has shut up about them (apart from in Epping).
UKIP wanted a "grammar school in every town". No other party is interested. Tells you all you need to know. And why? Because the evidence (educational and social mobility) that they do more harm than good is incontrovertible. Trust me.
Not sure why you'd expect anyone to 'trust you', and this post is a collection of sloppy empty clichés, of which 'they are the past not the future' is the emptiest.
Thanks for the rudeness. I've spent the last forty years working in education and educational policy, much of it on data analysis, at a high level. So while I'm pretty ignorant about much, I think I know about this. And guess what? The Tory party doesn't advocate the return of a tertiary system of secondary education.
Any time. I am sure that you have a great deal of knowledge on the subject, but you claimed 'incontrevertible evidence' that grammar schools have done more harm than good. If you have such evidence, why not present it?
The problem with grammar schools is not the grammar schools. Grammar schools, by and large, do a great job of educating kids. The 25% of kids who get into grammar schools do better than the top 25% of kids in comprehensives.
The problem is that the educational outcomes of the people who end up at the secondary moderns is significantly worse than if they had been to comprehensive schools.
And I would argue that the educational system in the UK's big problem for a very long time has been a lack of focus on the 75% of kids who probably shouldn't be going to university. It's ensuring - as they do in Switzerland or Germany - that they get the right skills to succeed.
The grammar discussion is the wrong one. It's a myopic focus on kids who are mostly going to do fine anyway. When the people we should worrying about aren't the people getting good GCSEs and A-Levels.
I care about the people who would have done well at grammar schools but don't at comprehensive schools (for various reasons).
Everyone learns differently, and there is no perfect system. Anyone who says "grammars are perfect" or "comprehensives are perfect" is an idiot.
But I think @LostPassword gets it right below. The vocational option has to be at least as an attractive as the grammar one, otherwise all we're doing is worsening the UK's existing problem: that we have a very large number of people without the right skills to survive in a modern economy.
And that has impacts beyond just the individual. It means that if I wanted to to setup a manufacturing plant I'd probably choose Dresden, not Darlington. Our education system doesn't just fail the bottom 60% of pupils, it fails our country too.
And the myopic fixation on grammar schools as a catch all solution to educational issues is scary beyond belief.
Agree. But that fixation on grammar schools is not widely spread beyond a few on PB. As I've asked before, why is it that no Tory government, going back to Thatcher, has seriously tried to expand grammar schools and re-institute the tripartite system? Because a) they know it wouldn't improve educational outcomes overall, and b) because they know it would be unpopular with the c. 80% of the cohort's parent who don't get into grammar schools.
Because they can't be bothered, because most Tory politicians pay to send their children to private school anyway.
It is noticeable certainly that some state educated Tory leaders like Major, May and Howard have tried to push grammars.'
However no recent privately educated leaders such as Cameron or Boris have tried to do so, after all they both went to Slough comprehensive just their parents paid a fortune for it.
Home to be fair to him did try and keep grammars in his 1964 manifesto despite being an Old Etonian, just Wilson narrowly won and then proceeded to scrap them despite benefiting from one himself
Not grammar schools again, please. The only place I ever come across nostalgia for grammar schools is on PB. They are the past, not the future. Even the Tory Party has shut up about them (apart from in Epping).
UKIP wanted a "grammar school in every town". No other party is interested. Tells you all you need to know. And why? Because the evidence (educational and social mobility) that they do more harm than good is incontrovertible. Trust me.
Not sure why you'd expect anyone to 'trust you', and this post is a collection of sloppy empty clichés, of which 'they are the past not the future' is the emptiest.
Thanks for the rudeness. I've spent the last forty years working in education and educational policy, much of it on data analysis, at a high level. So while I'm pretty ignorant about much, I think I know about this. And guess what? The Tory party doesn't advocate the return of a tertiary system of secondary education.
Any time. I am sure that you have a great deal of knowledge on the subject, but you claimed 'incontrevertible evidence' that grammar schools have done more harm than good. If you have such evidence, why not present it?
The problem with grammar schools is not the grammar schools. Grammar schools, by and large, do a great job of educating kids. The 25% of kids who get into grammar schools do better than the top 25% of kids in comprehensives.
The problem is that the educational outcomes of the people who end up at the secondary moderns is significantly worse than if they had been to comprehensive schools.
And I would argue that the educational system in the UK's big problem for a very long time has been a lack of focus on the 75% of kids who probably shouldn't be going to university. It's ensuring - as they do in Switzerland or Germany - that they get the right skills to succeed.
The grammar discussion is the wrong one. It's a myopic focus on kids who are mostly going to do fine anyway. When the people we should worrying about aren't the people getting good GCSEs and A-Levels.
I'm not sure that the top 25% in the most deprived areas are going to do fine.
So I can see the point of grammar schools in the likes of Knowsley or Hull.
I get that, and I'm not saying 'no selection'. I'm saying the purpose of selection needs to be as much to improve the outcomes of those who don't make it to grammar schools, as those who do.
And right now, poorer kids in selective counties do worse (academically) than those in non-selective counties.
Now, I suspect that this is an artifact of the top 5-10% doing better, but then 80-90% doing quite a lot worse.
And that's a serious problem.
But don't the selective counties counties tend to be the richer ones ?
So you're not comparing like with like.
The poor and dim in the posh areas are a different issue to the poor but clever in the deprived areas.
Wtaf are you trying to say?
That the issue of poor but clever kids in deprived areas in different to poor and dim kids in posh areas.
And that grammar schools may be of increasing use the more deprived an area is but may have increasingly negative effects the richer an area is.
Whereas in this country it tends to be the more affluent areas which have grammar schools.
So if my hypothesis is correct we've managed to get grammar schools in the wrong places.
Hmm. So the only reason that Grammars have failed is that they've not been tried properly...🤔
Grammars never failed, even if secondary moderns might have
But grammars did fail, because they demanded the existence of sec mods.
The truth is, someone from a poor background who's brighter than average, and who would benefit from going to a grammar school, is never going to be popular with everyone else. They won't be popular with the less bright children and their parents from the same type of background, and they won't be popular with wealthy but less bright children either. So it was the easiest thing in the world to end the system that allowed such people to get on in life, because it suited everyone else.
Not grammar schools again, please. The only place I ever come across nostalgia for grammar schools is on PB. They are the past, not the future. Even the Tory Party has shut up about them (apart from in Epping).
UKIP wanted a "grammar school in every town". No other party is interested. Tells you all you need to know. And why? Because the evidence (educational and social mobility) that they do more harm than good is incontrovertible. Trust me.
Not sure why you'd expect anyone to 'trust you', and this post is a collection of sloppy empty clichés, of which 'they are the past not the future' is the emptiest.
Thanks for the rudeness. I've spent the last forty years working in education and educational policy, much of it on data analysis, at a high level. So while I'm pretty ignorant about much, I think I know about this. And guess what? The Tory party doesn't advocate the return of a tertiary system of secondary education.
Any time. I am sure that you have a great deal of knowledge on the subject, but you claimed 'incontrevertible evidence' that grammar schools have done more harm than good. If you have such evidence, why not present it?
The problem with grammar schools is not the grammar schools. Grammar schools, by and large, do a great job of educating kids. The 25% of kids who get into grammar schools do better than the top 25% of kids in comprehensives.
The problem is that the educational outcomes of the people who end up at the secondary moderns is significantly worse than if they had been to comprehensive schools.
And I would argue that the educational system in the UK's big problem for a very long time has been a lack of focus on the 75% of kids who probably shouldn't be going to university. It's ensuring - as they do in Switzerland or Germany - that they get the right skills to succeed.
The grammar discussion is the wrong one. It's a myopic focus on kids who are mostly going to do fine anyway. When the people we should worrying about aren't the people getting good GCSEs and A-Levels.
I care about the people who would have done well at grammar schools but don't at comprehensive schools (for various reasons).
Everyone learns differently, and there is no perfect system. Anyone who says "grammars are perfect" or "comprehensives are perfect" is an idiot.
But I think @LostPassword gets it right below. The vocational option has to be at least as an attractive as the grammar one, otherwise all we're doing is worsening the UK's existing problem: that we have a very large number of people without the right skills to survive in a modern economy.
And that has impacts beyond just the individual. It means that if I wanted to to setup a manufacturing plant I'd probably choose Dresden, not Darlington. Our education system doesn't just fail the bottom 60% of pupils, it fails our country too.
And the myopic fixation on grammar schools as a catch all solution to educational issues is scary beyond belief.
Agree. But that fixation on grammar schools is not widely spread beyond a few on PB. As I've asked before, why is it that no Tory government, going back to Thatcher, has seriously tried to expand grammar schools and re-institute the tripartite system? Because a) they know it wouldn't improve educational outcomes overall, and b) because they know it would be unpopular with the c. 80% of the cohort's parent who don't get into grammar schools.
Because they can't be bothered, because most Tory politicians pay to send their children to private school anyway.
Most Tory politicians have private health care I would imagine, but they haven't abandoned the NHS. Or have they?
If the polls showed most voters would have a fully private insurance model for healthcare, certain Tory politicians (not all) who currently use private healthcare would immediately push that.
Queen Consort, only a female monarch is a Queen and plenty of monarchs over the ages were adulterers, as indeed have been a number of Presidents in other nations.
Camilla is also no longer that unpopular. Indeed in 2014 53% of voters wanted her to be Queen Consort, only 32% opposed
Not grammar schools again, please. The only place I ever come across nostalgia for grammar schools is on PB. They are the past, not the future. Even the Tory Party has shut up about them (apart from in Epping).
UKIP wanted a "grammar school in every town". No other party is interested. Tells you all you need to know. And why? Because the evidence (educational and social mobility) that they do more harm than good is incontrovertible. Trust me.
Not sure why you'd expect anyone to 'trust you', and this post is a collection of sloppy empty clichés, of which 'they are the past not the future' is the emptiest.
Thanks for the rudeness. I've spent the last forty years working in education and educational policy, much of it on data analysis, at a high level. So while I'm pretty ignorant about much, I think I know about this. And guess what? The Tory party doesn't advocate the return of a tertiary system of secondary education.
Any time. I am sure that you have a great deal of knowledge on the subject, but you claimed 'incontrevertible evidence' that grammar schools have done more harm than good. If you have such evidence, why not present it?
The problem with grammar schools is not the grammar schools. Grammar schools, by and large, do a great job of educating kids. The 25% of kids who get into grammar schools do better than the top 25% of kids in comprehensives.
The problem is that the educational outcomes of the people who end up at the secondary moderns is significantly worse than if they had been to comprehensive schools.
And I would argue that the educational system in the UK's big problem for a very long time has been a lack of focus on the 75% of kids who probably shouldn't be going to university. It's ensuring - as they do in Switzerland or Germany - that they get the right skills to succeed.
The grammar discussion is the wrong one. It's a myopic focus on kids who are mostly going to do fine anyway. When the people we should worrying about aren't the people getting good GCSEs and A-Levels.
I'm not sure that the top 25% in the most deprived areas are going to do fine.
So I can see the point of grammar schools in the likes of Knowsley or Hull.
I get that, and I'm not saying 'no selection'. I'm saying the purpose of selection needs to be as much to improve the outcomes of those who don't make it to grammar schools, as those who do.
And right now, poorer kids in selective counties do worse (academically) than those in non-selective counties.
Now, I suspect that this is an artifact of the top 5-10% doing better, but then 80-90% doing quite a lot worse.
And that's a serious problem.
I don't think anyone seriously opposes selection for university, and few would oppose for post 16 education. 11 years old does trouble me though. Perhaps heavily influenced by my older brother, who has since had a distinguished career as an Economist, failed his 11+ and was only saved by the area going Comprehensive the following year.
It's not selection at age 11 that is a problem per se, it's that our class fixation means that those selected for an academic education, for a future where they didn't get their hands dirty, were those who had succeeded, and everyone else had failed.
If it was simply a matter of selecting the most appropriate education for a child's aptitudes, then we wouldn't have the different options in a hierarchy.
I mention this a lot, but all my brothers-in-law went to third-level education in Ireland. One went on to do a Physics PhD, one has gone on to do an MBA, and the other did a third-level course in welding. They're all doing really well, and Ireland doesn't make the distinction between the welder, the physicist, and the MBA that we do in the UK. (They have their own problems, of course).
I reckon there are not many families in the UK where you would have kids going equally to study science at university, or a trade. It just doesn't happen.
Steve Barclay @SteveBarclay · 3h It is an honour to have been asked by the PM to serve as Chief of Staff for No10 Downing Street alongside my responsibilities in the Cabinet Office.
===
Yeh, right.
There's no way he can do this job sensibly with two other roles. So just a shite decision or set up to fail for some reason in Carrie's head?
My assumption is that Barclay was chosen because the only available candidates were identified amongst the fraction of Tory MPs that are still biddable. Presumably all the other potential appointments wouldn't want to work with Johnson on two grounds: (1) the job might not last more than a few days, and (2) everyone now has a pretty good idea of what kind of a creature he is.
Chief of Staff isn't a MP or ministerial role.
Once again it smacks of the panic and desperation in Team Boris (current membership: 3). They did not have time to find a Chief outside of a few close MPs.
Not grammar schools again, please. The only place I ever come across nostalgia for grammar schools is on PB. They are the past, not the future. Even the Tory Party has shut up about them (apart from in Epping).
UKIP wanted a "grammar school in every town". No other party is interested. Tells you all you need to know. And why? Because the evidence (educational and social mobility) that they do more harm than good is incontrovertible. Trust me.
Not sure why you'd expect anyone to 'trust you', and this post is a collection of sloppy empty clichés, of which 'they are the past not the future' is the emptiest.
Thanks for the rudeness. I've spent the last forty years working in education and educational policy, much of it on data analysis, at a high level. So while I'm pretty ignorant about much, I think I know about this. And guess what? The Tory party doesn't advocate the return of a tertiary system of secondary education.
Any time. I am sure that you have a great deal of knowledge on the subject, but you claimed 'incontrevertible evidence' that grammar schools have done more harm than good. If you have such evidence, why not present it?
The problem with grammar schools is not the grammar schools. Grammar schools, by and large, do a great job of educating kids. The 25% of kids who get into grammar schools do better than the top 25% of kids in comprehensives.
The problem is that the educational outcomes of the people who end up at the secondary moderns is significantly worse than if they had been to comprehensive schools.
And I would argue that the educational system in the UK's big problem for a very long time has been a lack of focus on the 75% of kids who probably shouldn't be going to university. It's ensuring - as they do in Switzerland or Germany - that they get the right skills to succeed.
The grammar discussion is the wrong one. It's a myopic focus on kids who are mostly going to do fine anyway. When the people we should worrying about aren't the people getting good GCSEs and A-Levels.
I'm not sure that the top 25% in the most deprived areas are going to do fine.
So I can see the point of grammar schools in the likes of Knowsley or Hull.
I get that, and I'm not saying 'no selection'. I'm saying the purpose of selection needs to be as much to improve the outcomes of those who don't make it to grammar schools, as those who do.
And right now, poorer kids in selective counties do worse (academically) than those in non-selective counties.
Now, I suspect that this is an artifact of the top 5-10% doing better, but then 80-90% doing quite a lot worse.
And that's a serious problem.
But don't the selective counties counties tend to be the richer ones ?
So you're not comparing like with like.
The poor and dim in the posh areas are a different issue to the poor but clever in the deprived areas.
Wtaf are you trying to say?
That the issue of poor but clever kids in deprived areas in different to poor and dim kids in posh areas.
And that grammar schools may be of increasing use the more deprived an area is but may have increasingly negative effects the richer an area is.
Whereas in this country it tends to be the more affluent areas which have grammar schools.
So if my hypothesis is correct we've managed to get grammar schools in the wrong places.
Hmm. So the only reason that Grammars have failed is that they've not been tried properly...🤔
Perhaps so and perhaps not.
But the current systems, whether comprehensive or grammar, are certainly failing many. Especially among those lower down the socioeconomic scale.
Not grammar schools again, please. The only place I ever come across nostalgia for grammar schools is on PB. They are the past, not the future. Even the Tory Party has shut up about them (apart from in Epping).
UKIP wanted a "grammar school in every town". No other party is interested. Tells you all you need to know. And why? Because the evidence (educational and social mobility) that they do more harm than good is incontrovertible. Trust me.
Not sure why you'd expect anyone to 'trust you', and this post is a collection of sloppy empty clichés, of which 'they are the past not the future' is the emptiest.
Thanks for the rudeness. I've spent the last forty years working in education and educational policy, much of it on data analysis, at a high level. So while I'm pretty ignorant about much, I think I know about this. And guess what? The Tory party doesn't advocate the return of a tertiary system of secondary education.
Any time. I am sure that you have a great deal of knowledge on the subject, but you claimed 'incontrevertible evidence' that grammar schools have done more harm than good. If you have such evidence, why not present it?
The problem with grammar schools is not the grammar schools. Grammar schools, by and large, do a great job of educating kids. The 25% of kids who get into grammar schools do better than the top 25% of kids in comprehensives.
The problem is that the educational outcomes of the people who end up at the secondary moderns is significantly worse than if they had been to comprehensive schools.
And I would argue that the educational system in the UK's big problem for a very long time has been a lack of focus on the 75% of kids who probably shouldn't be going to university. It's ensuring - as they do in Switzerland or Germany - that they get the right skills to succeed.
The grammar discussion is the wrong one. It's a myopic focus on kids who are mostly going to do fine anyway. When the people we should worrying about aren't the people getting good GCSEs and A-Levels.
I'm not sure that the top 25% in the most deprived areas are going to do fine.
So I can see the point of grammar schools in the likes of Knowsley or Hull.
I get that, and I'm not saying 'no selection'. I'm saying the purpose of selection needs to be as much to improve the outcomes of those who don't make it to grammar schools, as those who do.
And right now, poorer kids in selective counties do worse (academically) than those in non-selective counties.
Now, I suspect that this is an artifact of the top 5-10% doing better, but then 80-90% doing quite a lot worse.
And that's a serious problem.
But don't the selective counties counties tend to be the richer ones ?
So you're not comparing like with like.
The poor and dim in the posh areas are a different issue to the poor but clever in the deprived areas.
Wtaf are you trying to say?
That the issue of poor but clever kids in deprived areas in different to poor and dim kids in posh areas.
And that grammar schools may be of increasing use the more deprived an area is but may have increasingly negative effects the richer an area is.
Whereas in this country it tends to be the more affluent areas which have grammar schools.
So if my hypothesis is correct we've managed to get grammar schools in the wrong places.
Hmm. So the only reason that Grammars have failed is that they've not been tried properly...🤔
Grammars never failed, even if secondary moderns might have
But grammars did fail, because they demanded the existence of sec mods.
Nope, Germany has selection and its non selective schools provide excellent vocational and technical education
Steve Barclay @SteveBarclay · 3h It is an honour to have been asked by the PM to serve as Chief of Staff for No10 Downing Street alongside my responsibilities in the Cabinet Office.
===
Yeh, right.
There's no way he can do this job sensibly with two other roles. So just a shite decision or set up to fail for some reason in Carrie's head?
My assumption is that Barclay was chosen because the only available candidates were identified amongst the fraction of Tory MPs that are still biddable. Presumably all the other potential appointments wouldn't want to work with Johnson on two grounds: (1) the job might not last more than a few days, and (2) everyone now has a pretty good idea of what kind of a creature he is.
Chief of Staff isn't a MP or ministerial role.
Once again it smacks of the panic and desperation in Team Boris (current membership: 3). They did not have time to find a Chief outside of a few close MPs.
Well of course, but since when did Johnson care about proprieties?
The last 20 minutes of Don Giovanni on Radio 3 right now - 20 minutes of the finest music ever composed.
Are you dissing Radiohead?
I have never heard any Radiohead music. Or indeed heard of them except on here.
BTW other half is a planning barrister & worked in a LA planning department before then so if you want some advice on the joys and pains of either do get in touch.
I just thank my good fortune that I have never been sent on a "Circus Skills" team building day.
One of my bosses threatened this. I organised a peasants' revolt and we all went off to do an Italian cookery course instead followed by lunch. He was not pleased at my insubordination but I didn't care. I'd have broken my own leg rather than go on such a thing.
Has @Charles left due to doxxing? Not cool if so. Although he was one who would have been easier to identify if one was so inclined. But that's no excuse. I hope he returns.
A real shame to miss out on his knowledge and experiences, which are different to almost everyone on the site. Only JackW could compete for the length of family history The loss is to the detriment of the site for those who either concur or dissent from his views. His candour was always remarkable because of the ease of identifying him. Forcing anonymity by doxing or other threats encourages bullying and keyboard warrior behaviour. When your identity is known you need far more balls, honesty and conviction than the regiments of internet personnas we see every day. I for one will miss @charles, as well as other departed posters.
Not grammar schools again, please. The only place I ever come across nostalgia for grammar schools is on PB. They are the past, not the future. Even the Tory Party has shut up about them (apart from in Epping).
UKIP wanted a "grammar school in every town". No other party is interested. Tells you all you need to know. And why? Because the evidence (educational and social mobility) that they do more harm than good is incontrovertible. Trust me.
Not sure why you'd expect anyone to 'trust you', and this post is a collection of sloppy empty clichés, of which 'they are the past not the future' is the emptiest.
Thanks for the rudeness. I've spent the last forty years working in education and educational policy, much of it on data analysis, at a high level. So while I'm pretty ignorant about much, I think I know about this. And guess what? The Tory party doesn't advocate the return of a tertiary system of secondary education.
Any time. I am sure that you have a great deal of knowledge on the subject, but you claimed 'incontrevertible evidence' that grammar schools have done more harm than good. If you have such evidence, why not present it?
The problem with grammar schools is not the grammar schools. Grammar schools, by and large, do a great job of educating kids. The 25% of kids who get into grammar schools do better than the top 25% of kids in comprehensives.
The problem is that the educational outcomes of the people who end up at the secondary moderns is significantly worse than if they had been to comprehensive schools.
And I would argue that the educational system in the UK's big problem for a very long time has been a lack of focus on the 75% of kids who probably shouldn't be going to university. It's ensuring - as they do in Switzerland or Germany - that they get the right skills to succeed.
The grammar discussion is the wrong one. It's a myopic focus on kids who are mostly going to do fine anyway. When the people we should worrying about aren't the people getting good GCSEs and A-Levels.
I'm not sure that the top 25% in the most deprived areas are going to do fine.
So I can see the point of grammar schools in the likes of Knowsley or Hull.
I get that, and I'm not saying 'no selection'. I'm saying the purpose of selection needs to be as much to improve the outcomes of those who don't make it to grammar schools, as those who do.
And right now, poorer kids in selective counties do worse (academically) than those in non-selective counties.
Now, I suspect that this is an artifact of the top 5-10% doing better, but then 80-90% doing quite a lot worse.
And that's a serious problem.
But don't the selective counties counties tend to be the richer ones ?
So you're not comparing like with like.
The poor and dim in the posh areas are a different issue to the poor but clever in the deprived areas.
Wtaf are you trying to say?
That the issue of poor but clever kids in deprived areas in different to poor and dim kids in posh areas.
And that grammar schools may be of increasing use the more deprived an area is but may have increasingly negative effects the richer an area is.
Whereas in this country it tends to be the more affluent areas which have grammar schools.
So if my hypothesis is correct we've managed to get grammar schools in the wrong places.
Hmm. So the only reason that Grammars have failed is that they've not been tried properly...🤔
Perhaps so and perhaps not.
But the current systems, whether comprehensive or grammar, are certainly failing many. Especially among those lower down the socioeconomic scale.
I wouldn't argue with that at all. It is the lack of decent training, education and skills of those further down the SE scale that is the real root of the levelling up problem.
Steve Barclay @SteveBarclay · 3h It is an honour to have been asked by the PM to serve as Chief of Staff for No10 Downing Street alongside my responsibilities in the Cabinet Office.
===
Yeh, right.
There's no way he can do this job sensibly with two other roles. So just a shite decision or set up to fail for some reason in Carrie's head?
My assumption is that Barclay was chosen because the only available candidates were identified amongst the fraction of Tory MPs that are still biddable. Presumably all the other potential appointments wouldn't want to work with Johnson on two grounds: (1) the job might not last more than a few days, and (2) everyone now has a pretty good idea of what kind of a creature he is.
Chief of Staff isn't a MP or ministerial role.
Once again it smacks of the panic and desperation in Team Boris (current membership: 3). They did not have time to find a Chief outside of a few close MPs.
Comments
Maybe we should all just pause and think of his family at this sad time
As a country, we do a poor job getting the right skills to people who are in the bottom 60%. And that problem is worse in grammar school areas.
This discussion should be 'how do we improve the outcomes for the bottom 60% of students'?
Because that is where the UK is failing.
Some of your post however is a bit close to Doxxing, and like many others who use pseudonyms here, something that makes me a bit uncomfortable.
I do miss the walking club. Didn't go on many walks because I was so busy on Sundays with Holy Trinity, but did enjoy the nights out.
There was another person incidentally a couple of years before you arrived who was a little bit like you, and did apply for several committee positions. Other Simon wrote the manifestoes for the candidates he strongarmed into standing against him. I particularly enjoyed the one for the first aider:
'If you have an accident, and feel my hands wandering all over you, it's not because I give a fuck what's wrong with you. I'm just looking for your money.'
I'm wrong all the time.
I love it when the people I work with prove me wrong, because that means I've learned something.
The fact that you think that sometimes admitting you're wrong is a "lefty liberal" plot is weird beyond belief.
A month or so ago, I had a big argument with @Leon about Wuhan. And you know what, he was right, and I was wrong. And I said 'you know what, you're absolutely right'. Of course, he's a famous lefty liberal, so I guess that just proves your point.
Important YouGov update on Pineapple on Pizza and other matters of authenticity.
Happy for a private message if a connection is made and Ydoethur's comments do not bother me that much but at the end of the day this is a politics site, not a site for going over our life stories
So within the limits I think the identification is fair enough. Nothing I have put would come up on a Google search for his name. Which may be just as well for him...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iain_Duncan_Smith
Charles we know was identified against his will and has sadly now departed the site (albeit Charles is a rather higher profile figure than me)
So I can see the point of grammar schools in the likes of Knowsley or Hull.
Yes but you are not a member of a political party, unlike me.
I am, part of the reason I come here is to improve my arguments for the conservative cases I believe in
Edit/ - correction - he claimed he had been educated at the University of Perugia, but it turned out he had simply attended a language school there.
And (at least when we looked at this in excrutiating detail 12 years ago when choosing a place to live) Trafford did considerably better than Stockport pretty much every way you slice it.
As I say, I am agnostic on grammar schools. But the success of schools in Trafford is down to far more than just social class.
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2013/05/great-crapsy-why-iain-duncan-smith-isnt-all-he-seems
https://vf.politicalbetting.com/discussion/comment/3381414/#Comment_3381414
(and FWIW, obviously being an elected councillor means you have to enter your particulars in the register of members' interests, which is in the public domain; indeed, some councils publish that register online.)
And right now, poorer kids in selective counties do worse (academically) than those in non-selective counties.
Now, I suspect that this is an artifact of the top 5-10% doing better, but then 80-90% doing quite a lot worse.
And that's a serious problem.
Maybe if we'd had a bunch of exercises for children at the end of primary, designed to test their aptitude for learning technical/practical/vocational skills, and sent the kids who passed into prestigious technical schools - and let the kids who "failed" do book-learning - we would have ended up in a better place.
Wierd. Creepy. Tedious.
Definitely not funny.
But I think @LostPassword gets it right below. The vocational option has to be at least as an attractive as the grammar one, otherwise all we're doing is worsening the UK's existing problem: that we have a very large number of people without the right skills to survive in a modern economy.
And that has impacts beyond just the individual. It means that if I wanted to to setup a manufacturing plant I'd probably choose Dresden, not Darlington. Our education system doesn't just fail the bottom 60% of pupils, it fails our country too.
And the myopic fixation on grammar schools as a catch all solution to educational issues is scary beyond belief.
(The metaphor, that is, not the circus!)
Good night.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-60275177
Jonathan Powell
@jnpowell1
Steve Barclay MP as Chief of Staff? Does he resign as an MP? Or is he answerable to Parliament? I can think of no democracy where the chief of staff can also be in the legislature. Thread
https://twitter.com/jnpowell1/status/1490041070482296834
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Tim Shipman
@ShippersUnbound
JOHNSON'S NEXT PROBLEM: Dominic Cummings is expected to blog on Monday with new evidence he hopes will spark a police inquiry into the funding of the Downing Street flat and what he thinks was a cover up during the probe by Lord Geidt.
Someone on BBC News last week (I forget whom) mentioned the Turkish saying:
"When a clown enters the palace, he doesn't become King, instead the palace becomes a circus."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helge_Braun
So you're not comparing like with like.
The poor and dim in the posh areas are a different issue to the poor but clever in the deprived areas.
Steve Barclay
@SteveBarclay
·
3h
It is an honour to have been asked by the PM to serve as Chief of Staff for No10 Downing Street alongside my responsibilities in the Cabinet Office.
===
Yeh, right.
There's no way he can do this job sensibly with two other roles. So just a shite decision or set up to fail for some reason in Carrie's head?
Not cool if so. Although he was one who would have been easier to identify if one was so inclined.
But that's no excuse. I hope he returns.
I'd happily pay £10 not to have breakfast with Boris Johnson.
Could he be the one who inherits the mantle?
It wasn't that the majority of Secondary School Heads decided they weren't going to bother making an effort.
The system was faulty, and when PM HYUFD reintroduces Secondary Modern education it will still be faulty, as is the general principle of selection at 11.
He was open about his father's identity when the latter sadly passed away a year or so ago, even posting a link to The Times obituary IIRC, so I hardly think he took steps to conceal his identity in any way.
And that grammar schools may be of increasing use the more deprived an area is but may have increasingly negative effects the richer an area is.
Whereas in this country it tends to be the more affluent areas which have grammar schools.
So if my hypothesis is correct we've managed to get grammar schools in the wrong places.
Utterly scandalous that an adulteress gets rewarded like this.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-60274816
I'm a little suprised Sajid Javid isn't spoken about more. He's held a number of cabinet posts - basically all the big ones except foreign secretary and PM. Two of these posts, Home Secretary and Health Secretary, were to steady the ship after his predicessors, Rudd and Hancock, presided over scandals. The Tories might consider whether he could do the same for Number 10.
For what will be an exclusively Tory electorate that may not be entirely predisposed to the machinations of Dominic Cummings, Javid has the street cred of having quit as Chancellor rather than meet Dom's demands, while also being a loyal enough Tory later to return to serve at a safer distance from Johnson. He's also a safe bet not to have been at any all-night raves during lockdown.
The case against him for Tory MPs and members is that he seems to have been supportive of an Omicron lockdown, but that can be chalked down to him being Health Secretary at the time and you tend to speak in your department's interests (just as every Home Secretary wants less immigration, and every Business Secretary wants more).
He may not be naturally charismatic, but frankly neither is Starmer.
Camilla is also no longer that unpopular. Indeed in 2014 53% of voters wanted her to be Queen Consort, only 32% opposed
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2014/06/10/Camilla-can-become-Queen
However no recent privately educated leaders such as Cameron or Boris have tried to do so, after all they both went to Slough comprehensive just their parents paid a fortune for it.
Home to be fair to him did try and keep grammars in his 1964 manifesto despite being an Old Etonian, just Wilson narrowly won and then proceeded to scrap them despite benefiting from one himself
If it was simply a matter of selecting the most appropriate education for a child's aptitudes, then we wouldn't have the different options in a hierarchy.
I mention this a lot, but all my brothers-in-law went to third-level education in Ireland. One went on to do a Physics PhD, one has gone on to do an MBA, and the other did a third-level course in welding. They're all doing really well, and Ireland doesn't make the distinction between the welder, the physicist, and the MBA that we do in the UK. (They have their own problems, of course).
I reckon there are not many families in the UK where you would have kids going equally to study science at university, or a trade. It just doesn't happen.
Lab 41 (-1)
Con 34 (+2)
LD 10 (-)
Once again it smacks of the panic and desperation in Team Boris (current membership: 3). They did not have time to find a Chief outside of a few close MPs.
But the current systems, whether comprehensive or grammar, are certainly failing many. Especially among those lower down the socioeconomic scale.
BTW other half is a planning barrister & worked in a LA planning department before then so if you want some advice on the joys and pains of either do get in touch. One of my bosses threatened this. I organised a peasants' revolt and we all went off to do an Italian cookery course instead followed by lunch. He was not pleased at my insubordination but I didn't care. I'd have broken my own leg rather than go on such a thing.
Only JackW could compete for the length of family history
The loss is to the detriment of the site for those who either concur or dissent from his views.
His candour was always remarkable because of the ease of identifying him.
Forcing anonymity by doxing or other threats encourages bullying and keyboard warrior behaviour. When your identity is known you need far more balls, honesty and conviction than the regiments of internet personnas we see every day.
I for one will miss @charles, as well as other departed posters.