WI: British governments never turn against grammar schools?

Here's a WI that I think could be very interesting: what if Labour and the Conservatives don't turn on the grammar schools in the period 1964-1974? How would things like social mobility and urban poverty be affected today with a surviving Grammar/Secondary Modern education system in the United Kingdom?
 
Labour was the dominant force against these institutions, and they were opposed to grammar schools before the Wilson government AFAIK.

I've wondered if it's possible that that party might go down the path of the NSW state Labor governments of the twentieth century, and be the ones dedicated to building selective schools*--but for that you'd need a POD in the nineteenth century that saw the original UK national school expansion not occurring in the first place!

A Great Britain that relies on the ancient grammar- and village-schools that existed at the height of the Victorian era?


*Actually, until about thirty/forty years ago every high school in Australia was a selective school for final year education. We weren't big on matriculation. I don't want to look for the OECD comparative figures, I'm certain they won't look very flash.
 
We have levels of social mobility in the middle of the OECD rather than the bottom of the list and 5% of the population goes to private schools rather than 10%.
 
70-80% of children are still told they are failures AGE 11 (a much higher proportiion in the working class ) we have less social mobility
 
Here's a WI that I think could be very interesting: what if Labour and the Conservatives don't turn on the grammar schools in the period 1964-1974? How would things like social mobility and urban poverty be affected today with a surviving Grammar/Secondary Modern education system in the United Kingdom?

You actually have an educational system that retains the flexibility to cater to people of different abilities rather than lumping everybody with the same level of mediocrity.

Essentially Singapore retains the pre-comprehensive education system and we've got one of the best educational systems in the world.
 
You actually have an educational system that retains the flexibility to cater to people of different abilities rather than lumping everybody with the same level of mediocrity.

Essentially Singapore retains the pre-comprehensive education system and we've got one of the best educational systems in the world.

Exactly. Many of the former Empire countries retain a lot of what was best about Imperial Britain that has now been lost to the mother country.
 
70-80% of children are still told they are failures AGE 11 (a much higher proportiion in the working class ) we have less social mobility

Really? Surely if it's something like 80%, then they aren't exactly failures. The Secondary Moderns provided a far better standard of education than contemporary comprehensives IIRC, and furthermore they gave children a far greater preparation for working manually. I would suggest that it's their removal, coupled with the millitancy of 1970s trade unions, that has led to the collapse in Britain being able to "make things".
 
70-80% of children are still told they are failures AGE 11 (a much higher proportiion in the working class ) we have less social mobility

You are always going to have good schools and bad schools no matter how hard you try to make them the same. Therefore if you want to encourage social mobility you make sure everyone has an equal chance to get into the good schools.
Now its a post code lottery which favours the middle class as they can afford to buy near good schools, leading to much lower levels of social mobility. Now people are streamed based on wealth with poor kids going to poor schools, middle class kids going to good state and church schools and rich kids going to private school.
With the grammars you still had the same level of streaming but it was based on ability which is much fairer and better for the country in the long run.
 
On of the reasons for the demise of the grammar school is that middle class parents started finsing that their children weren't getting into them, so they stopped supporting them.

Of course, what should have been done is to have invested more in the secondary moderns, and institute, say, biannual promotion/demotion exams, but that would have been much more expensive, and wouldn't have got past the snobbery factor.

Perhaps what you need is some reform that disproportionately improves primary education in middle class areas, or introduces two tiers of grammar schools.
 

Dom

Moderator
It always surprised me when I heard about other parts of the country without Grammar schools. Where I come from we still did the 11+ and I personally went to a Grammar school.
 
You are always going to have good schools and bad schools no matter how hard you try to make them the same. Therefore if you want to encourage social mobility you make sure everyone has an equal chance to get into the good schools.
Now its a post code lottery which favours the middle class as they can afford to buy near good schools, leading to much lower levels of social mobility. Now people are streamed based on wealth with poor kids going to poor schools, middle class kids going to good state and church schools and rich kids going to private school.
With the grammars you still had the same level of streaming but it was based on ability which is much fairer and better for the country in the long run.

This is key- reforming the system to reward academic performance.
 
This is key- reforming the system to reward academic performance.
Relative academic performance should also be rewarded. That is, factors such as family background should be considered in assessing achievement. It's one thing to do well in school coming from a stable background where academic is the norm and another where it is outside the norm.
 
I agree that background factors are important, for example a refugee who arrived from Somalia two years ago and get 74% is probably more intelligent than a middle class kid who got 75%. The problem is taking them into account without accidentally making things worse.
I think a good system would be like Germany's only with just two tiers so have maybe 30%-35% of the population go to state grammar schools with 60%-65% going to Secondary modern. The change (rich but dumb(Harrow), special needs, Borstal etc.) would go to a variety of specialist schools.
I think its inevitable that you would have middle class kids overrepresented in the grammars but you'd have much greater levels of social mobility, possibly leading to less moaning about levels of social inequality and no "tall poppy" syndrome as the current perception that its all inherited wouldn't be so strong.
 
70-80% of children are still told they are failures AGE 11 (a much higher proportiion in the working class ) we have less social mobility

Really? Surely if it's something like 80%, then they aren't exactly failures. The Secondary Moderns provided a far better standard of education than contemporary comprehensives IIRC, and furthermore they gave children a far greater preparation for working manually. I would suggest that it's their removal, coupled with the millitancy of 1970s trade unions, that has led to the collapse in Britain being able to "make things".
Um... what? Derek is saying with the 11+ system, the majority of kids are written off as no good at the age of 11.

I don't understand what you've said has to do with that.
Links to the recent OECD report (PDF format)
http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/17/42/44566315.pdf
and press summary of the report
http://www.oecd.org/document/14/0,3343,en_2649_34487_44575438_1_1_1_1,00.html

Basically, more socialistic economically developed countries have better social mobility. No real news there, Comrades. Unless you rely on Rupert Murdoch for your news. :)
Yes, just read the summary... interesting.
It always surprised me when I heard about other parts of the country without Grammar schools. Where I come from we still did the 11+ and I personally went to a Grammar school.
Um...
a) Where do you live?
b) How old are you?

also c) Grammar schools do still exist, yes. But there have been no new ones for decades.
 
I think a good system would be like Germany's only with just two tiers so have maybe 30%-35% of the population go to state grammar schools with 60%-65% going to Secondary modern.

That's hot iron you're touching. Susano?
 

Susano

Banned
That's hot iron you're touching. Susano?

Heh. Actually Id fully agree. I certainly do want a branched education system, but the Hauptschule seems about unreformable, so...

Of course considering that already half of all students go to Gymnasium (i.e. "grammar school") expecting it to be 1/3 is unrealistic. But then, since increased numbers of academics are needed, thats not even necessarily bad. Though I do think they should raise the "difficulty level" of the Gymnasium...

OTOH, I find it funny that Aracnid talkls about social mobility, because for all its advantages, thats the biggest disadvantage of branched education systems. Germany has statistically the least social mobility in regards to education of all of Europe!
 
It can hardly be worse than the UK we rank at the bottom on pretty much every metric for social mobility in the OECD simply because the only poor people who get a decent education and thus access to good universities and thus good jobs are people who went to the handful of grammars or got a scholarship to a private school.
 
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