Northern Ireland's consistently higher performance - it has improved again - has been put down to its system of selective schools, where pupils are tested at the age of 11 and the brighter ones get
places at grammar schools.
My grandfather, Joe, whose own circumstances (he was sent down the mines at 14 to support his family despite having gained
a place at grammar school) made me very conscious that I should make the most of any opportunities granted to me.
Not exact matches
Weekly circuit sessions take
place at Manchester
Grammar School every Tuesday, 6.15 - 7.15 pm, it's a great way to build up your core strength.
The scheme's critics argued that Specialist
Schools encouraged segregation in education, insofar as the middle class parents who were long best placed to ensure favourable outcomes from school admissions regimes of grammar schools would continue to be able to get their children into the better schools, at the expense of those from poorer and socially excluded backg
Schools encouraged segregation in education, insofar as the middle class parents who were long best
placed to ensure favourable outcomes from
school admissions regimes of
grammar schools would continue to be able to get their children into the better schools, at the expense of those from poorer and socially excluded backg
schools would continue to be able to get their children into the better
schools, at the expense of those from poorer and socially excluded backg
schools,
at the expense of those from poorer and socially excluded backgrounds.
The Tory - supporting commentator has called
school wheelchair ramps a sign of «ghastly inclusivity» and once described working - class
grammar school boys who secured
places at Oxford as «universally unattractive» and «small, vaguely deformed undergraduates».
John Howson, recruitment expert and honorary research fellow
at the University of Oxford, described
grammar schools as «a product of the nineteenth century that lingered overlong into the twentieth and have no
place in the modern world» and said that to introduce new
grammar schools without a comprehensive education plan would be «unbelievably short - sighted».
In a blog post John Howson, an honorary research fellow
at the University of Oxford, described
grammar schools as «a product of the nineteenth century that lingered overlong into the twentieth and have no
place in the modern world» and said that to introduce new
grammar schools without a comprehensive education plan would be «unbelievably short - sighted».
The Department for Education said thousands were missing out on a
place at a
grammar because of the current ban on new selective
schools.
We're looking very carefully
at our admissions code, which has already changed to allocate
places for pupil premium [additional funding for
schools to raise the attainment of disadvantaged pupils] and other disadvantage indicators, and overcome the stigma from some families that
grammar schools are not for them.»
An excellent
place to start looking
at the evidence on
grammar schools is with the work of Newsnight's Chris Cook.
Interviews take
place on site
at The Manchester
Grammar School.
«In the face of such overwhelming evidence, it therefore beggars belief that the Government has announced it will plough # 50 million to expand the number of
places at existing selective
grammar schools.
The government is
at pains to say that the
grammar proposal will be part of a wider reform, only one of many measures to maximise the number of good
school places.
Yet of the state
school pupils securing a
place at Cambridge in 2015, 682 came from sixth - forms in comprehensive
schools and 589 from
grammar schools; in other words, almost as many come from the 163
grammar schools as come from all the 11 - 18 comprehensive
schools put together.
Those children,
at the top of those
schools, do not have to compete with the children
at the
grammar, and they go on to compete very successfully and get good
places at elite universities.
Children in
grammars on free
school meals are twice as likely to get five good GCSE grades, and so twice as likely to secure a
place at and to attend one of the top Russell Group universities, as their wealthier peers who attend comprehensives.
It found that although pupils in
grammar schools have higher average attainment
at KS4, this is only because their
schools cherry - picked them in the first
place, as demonstrated by the fact that
grammar schools do not drive up overall results in their areas, nor reduce the poverty gap.
In 1944 England established a tripartite education system which
placed grammar schools at the top of the heap.