I’m genuinely surprised by this. I went to a state comprehensive and hated it - the teachers had to spend as much time policing behaviour as teaching and the ability range was so wide that the...
I’m genuinely surprised by this. I went to a state comprehensive and hated it - the teachers had to spend as much time policing behaviour as teaching and the ability range was so wide that the only those on exam grade borderlines got any real focus. The people who’d struggle to even pass were basically treated as a lost cause, and those already expected to get top grades didn’t warrant any real teaching time because it wouldn’t affect the school’s performance metrics either way.
I don’t blame (the vast majority of) the teachers at all, they were overworked, underpaid, understaffed, and exhausted. It just seemed like throwing all those students into one place exacerbated all of those problems, not to mention leaving them stuck in a situation where academic achievement was viewed with heavy suspicion at best, and being seen to actually try was absolute social suicide.
I do wonder whether this study is suffering from the same ceiling effect: the top students will comfortably get top grades wherever they are, but that says nothing about them reaching their actual potential. It also doesn’t go into the social benefits or drawbacks for different ability groups, which I can totally understand being out of scope, but is still extremely important to the overall picture.
Then again, since I didn’t have the opportunity to go to a grammar school at all (there were none feasibly nearby), maybe the part I’m missing is that they really don’t fix any of those problems, and all I’m doing is looking back at my 20 year younger self wishing the grass was greener.
So now we are learning that our long cherished methods of learning are not so effective after all.
The UK’s brightest pupils’ chances of getting top GCSE grades are actually lower in grammar schools than in comprehensives, according to a major new piece of research.
The study, which was based on test results and other information from all pupils in England, challenges the common belief that high achievers do better in more academic schools.
Overall, the results show little difference in GCSE pass rates between areas with grammar schools and areas which were non-selective. The paper concludes that expansion of England’s 163 grammar schools would be expensive and unwise, given the lack of evidence that it would raise standards.
“Our study adds to the evidence that the expansion of grammar schools and the selective system is unlikely to raise national academic standards,” she explains. “....expanding the selective system would not be a wise decision.”
So now we are learning that our long cherished methods of learning are not so effective after all.
I’m genuinely surprised by this. I went to a state comprehensive and hated it - the teachers had to spend as much time policing behaviour as teaching and the ability range was so wide that the only those on exam grade borderlines got any real focus. The people who’d struggle to even pass were basically treated as a lost cause, and those already expected to get top grades didn’t warrant any real teaching time because it wouldn’t affect the school’s performance metrics either way.
I don’t blame (the vast majority of) the teachers at all, they were overworked, underpaid, understaffed, and exhausted. It just seemed like throwing all those students into one place exacerbated all of those problems, not to mention leaving them stuck in a situation where academic achievement was viewed with heavy suspicion at best, and being seen to actually try was absolute social suicide.
I do wonder whether this study is suffering from the same ceiling effect: the top students will comfortably get top grades wherever they are, but that says nothing about them reaching their actual potential. It also doesn’t go into the social benefits or drawbacks for different ability groups, which I can totally understand being out of scope, but is still extremely important to the overall picture.
Then again, since I didn’t have the opportunity to go to a grammar school at all (there were none feasibly nearby), maybe the part I’m missing is that they really don’t fix any of those problems, and all I’m doing is looking back at my 20 year younger self wishing the grass was greener.
So now we are learning that our long cherished methods of learning are not so effective after all.