please empty your brain below

My schooldays were more like Fenn Street from the days of "Please Sir"
I'm feeling slightly ashamed that I think this is actually a good idea
In my experience the kids that were thick at primary school were still thick at secondary school, no amount of initiatives will turn them into anything else.

As to the whole education system, I'm reminded of the adage that any job is made to fit the time available, so extending the leaving age to 18 won't make things better, you'll just get really bored pupils stuck in the system longer.

There should be a basic maths exam, multiplication, division, addition, subtraction, to show that you get it, anything after that is an add on ;-), perhaps it should be against the clock to give a time taken against accuracy.

I would be in favour of a completion target, so once you know enough stuff, you can leave and start the next stage of education, that way pupils don't get bored by being held back.
Love the badge!
I'm glad this isn't mean-spirited. That would have been too a la mode.
A late colleague of mine said many years ago that the bright pupils would always do well, and the not-bright ones would never do well, so it was better to concentrate on the ones in the middle. I always thought that there was a lot of wisdom in it. Ironically, he had a Cambridge degree!
Brilliant.

The school's uniform policy is presumably a suitable compromise. Each pupil is allowed to "forget" one item of uniform each day. But a pupil who arrives with the wrong shoes AND the wrong blazer will be sent home.

Similarly, teachers may be addressed, at pupils' choice, by either their surname OR their middle name - but definitely not the first name.
I'm a Beta. Betas are the best. Not like those brainy Alphas that don't have a life. At least I'm not a Gamma. Gammas are just stupid. And as for the Deltas, they're barely human.

Though I suppose somebody does need to collect the rubbish.
Yes, replace a public school boy with a grammar school boy and send education back to the good old days ..... what an argument for the grammar school!!??
Anon@7:34 a.m. The point of the joke (if I have understood it right) is that a "median school" actually would be good for middling pupils, assuming that comprehensives no longer including the best pupil (and teachers) because they've been skimmed off to grammar schools. But then pupils and schools in the bottom bracket (who are only hinted at in this "press release" would be really screwed: there's no opportunity for them to even progress to moderate grades, never mind the top, and they'll need lots of funding to cover special needs support and the like but will have a hard time justfying getting as much money as grammar schools when their grades are not just a bit lower but rock bottom. They'd also not be mixing with the middle-performing and perhaps better behaved pupils, which might have moderated their behaviour a bit.

Hmm, in typing that I've thought of an alternative interpretation. Maybe it is easy to justify lots of funding and specialist teachers for those with special problems, but then as the "press release" says there's none left over for the middling schools.
Grammar schools do not increase the range of "choice", or the social mobility, for the children who don't get into them. Surely that is the most important question: what kind of education and opportuities do the other children get?

How is it even possible, given the huge amount of effort that has been expended on the school system for at least the last 20 years, that there still hundreds of thousands of children being educated at schools that are rated as needing improvement or as inadequate?
Will she encourage more "faith" schools? They are potentially dangerous and socially divisive, in my view. You only have to look at the effects these schools have on Ulster and Scotland, where few people get to meet people from the "other" faith. If parents want to have their kids indoctrinated in their religion, they can do that after school hours. Schools should be secular and neutral in faith matters, not breeding grounds for a Fifth Column.
This policy announcement is not about education or social mobility at all. It is a rallying call to voters, notably the "grandparents" DG refers to in paragraph 4.

It will create yet more expensive Headteachers who have time to waste as over-zealous uniform monitors and change nothing else.
I love the Academy's motto!
Given Mrs May has only promised £50m a year for her new grammar schools it's not exactly going to be a revolution given the education budget is £8bn a year. What this is is a "dead cat" slung flat bang on the table. It's a classic distraction guaranteed to generate a load of debate while we take no notice of the NHS in a state of collapse or the empty cupboard that is Brexit policy. Mrs May has no manifesto or electoral mandate for the change and she barely has a working majority in the Commons. The Lords have no reason to behave either. This will go precisely nowhere even if a section of the Tory Party are squealing with delight about another policy burnished with the soft glow of the 1950s.

I'm just thankful that I am not a parent because we have turned education into a living hell for everyone involved in it. How any child manages to be properly educated and be reasonably "rounded" in their perspective on the world and not be a nervous wreck come 16 or 18 is a minor miracle. I'm glad I was educated back in the 70s and 80s when things may not have been ideal but they were not the anxiety riven mess they are today. If that sounds a bit "self satisfied" it isn't meant to me. I do genuinely worry about the prospects of future generations (and the country at large) given the education system and distorted aspirations that surround it.
hmmm ... so the bright kids need money spent on them to hot-house them ... and the special needs kids need money spent on them so they can make the most of their potential ... but the kids-in-the-middle are cheap to educate
I disagree with PC's "anxiety ridden mess" remark. The school system today is far from perfect - in ways mentioned here, and doubtless many others.

But there are still many dedicated and hard-working teachers and other workers - though sadly I'm not able to claim that that description applies to absolutely all of them. Thanks to the efforts of these good teachers, today's school system works well - in parts.

But there is clearly also room for improvement. And dead cats won't help!
"This government won't rest until every child is above average." (Well known education secretary a few years ago)
"This government proposes that every school should be selective. (More recent prime minister)
So how does that work then?
Are you proposing a mediocracy?

Seriously, I don't believe that there has been any serious research into whether the overall results (grammars and the other secondary schools) for areas with grammar schools are any better than those in areas without for roughly the same demographic.

(Also there is no statistically sound evidence that Academies are better than maintained schools).

It is generally true that schools improve if subject to a lot of attention and extra funds. The Academy bit is incidental - it's just new management.
But seriously... As an ex-grammar school boy who often visits comprehensive schools for my work, I'm endlessly impressed with the standard of education provided there for all abilities. The 'high flying' academically inclined get the same good results as they always did, while the 'non-academic' get a more rounded and challenging education, with the added opportunity to shake off initial expectations and fly higher themselves.

And there's plenty of evidence to suggest that overall pupil attainment in areas with grammar schools is generally lower than it is in areas without, so while selection benefits the selected, it doesn't seem to help the unselected.  Of course Mrs M is adding all kinds of caveats, fine tunings and restrictions to make her 'more selective schools' proposals sound more acceptable, which only shows that they must know how basically unworkable the scheme is.  

It's disappointing/no surprise that Mrs May has thrown this 'dead cat' into the ring so soon to distract from more serious issues and to gain support based on emotion and nostalgia rather than evidence.  And that's the worrying bit.  Our new PM has tried to sell herself as someone who carefully considers a case and doesn't rush to judgement, but reanimating the grammar school dodo suggests that she's as susceptible to personal whim and/or political posturing as the next (or more likely the previous) person.  

And once politicians start down the slippery slope of 'what the public wants' and 'the people have spoken', can capital punishment be far away - with all kinds of protections,  provisos and safeguards to make it 'fit for the 21st century' of course. 
dg's a leftie!
LEFTY NONSENSE.

FOREVER.
I was forced into a grammar school education because I wrote a good essay in the 11-plus. For that 'talent' I was sent over three miles away to satisfy my junior school head's ambitions for several non-volunteer kids in a prestigious school instead of the local one with my mates.

Grammar schools then and possibly now too have one ambition - to get their whizz-kids into 'top' universities. Then we had grants which wasn't so bad; now we plunge the poor sods into debt and disincentives to take up higher-paid careers afterwards.

When will the ubiquitous 'they' see that education is an investment in our national future and well-being, not a political football for a couple of lines in the previous or coming manifesto? We need good education and facilities for all, so while 'St Median' caters for an unsung cadre, we end up with a mediocre generation of few skills, little awareness and no will to fight for anything better. The feudal system comes back next.

Nil carbundrum desperandum illegitimii [spelling allowed for]
"so the kids-in-the-middle are cheap to educate"

I refer you to Douglas Adams's solution - the "B" Ark.
What ActonMan said.

And Joel, you wrote an essay for the 11+? As I recall mine (taken in 1968) was just what you would call an IQ test of some sort.
I think the 11 plus was always more than just an IQ test, perhaps that's the part you remember. In the 50s, it had 3 parts; English, Arithmetic and IQ.
I think it's similar now, where it applies.
An additional educational initiative, to match St Median's, would be a mixed school for boys only. This would build on the (true) research finding that girls thrive better in single-sex schools, and boys do best in mixed schools.
Oh no the 1950's are coming back. My elder sister passed the 11 plus, I failed it. Our lives have been quite different. Why label the majority of 11 year olds as failures, it sticks for the rest of your life.
@Amber

I took the 11-plus in 1969, and as far as I recall it was only a verbal and logical reasoning IQ-type test: no essay writing.

I now live in a different part of the country, but the admission test for my local state secondary school is very similar to that. They even claim that essay writing can't be part of the test because it has to be completely objective (read, machine-markable)

It is a very blunt instrument, and depends very much on how you perform on the day, (and how familiar you are with such tests!). A young lady of my acquaintance failed her 11 plus - ten years later she got a Double First from Cambridge University!
They all get their raw material from primary schools and until these are given increased funds to halve class sizes and attract the best teachers to concentrate on the most important and influential years of life we shall always have problems.
Just for clarity, I took my 11-plus in 1962, in inner east London... As I recall (not reliably) we had just two tests - maths and English. I clearly remember the classroom we sat the tests in (or 'in which we sat the tests' to satisfy the pedantic, up with which I shall reluctantly put). I also recall being asked what seemed to be blindingly obvious 'IQ' type questions but not sure if that was something else.

It was so divisive... Mates already knowing they would be separated into different schools. No-one liked this, not even the class swots.
@ Timbo; I used to supervise IQ tests intended for adults who simply wanted to know their IQ out of interest. Like any exam result it's affected by physical and mental health. If someone arrived with a bad cold, I'd advise them to come back to another test-session when they're recovered. Also if you've recently had a breakup/been bereaved/been kept awake most of the night, perhaps by a car alarm; all these affect your concentration. So it's much more unfortunate if any of these happens to a child taking the 11plus










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