Highcrest victory 'means Bucks is no longer a fully selective education system' (From Bucks Free Press)

Well done Highcrest, you have shown what can be done through innovation. Perhaps it is time that those Comprehensive Future supporters who objected start getting behind Shena now!

It's also great news that the Head sounds like she has no plans to move on, unlike many superheads. She should get a damehood for services to education!

As for Bucks CC!! How can they have nerve to say "The council has a responsibility, as champion of Buckinghamshire children, to ensure that a fair and equitable admissions process exists for all children and young people" while they prop up the 11+ system?! I'd like to see the Adjudicator get her teeth into that!

J'agree Hercule!! The crap that Headteacher has had to put up with must be sheer jealousy from those upper schools. It is time Bucks CC also championed change, this is a good time now for a new discussion on parental choice and also 11 plus coaching for rich kidz.

More insight from Buck CC "The Adjudicator's decision on Highcrest will not affect the existing 11+ selective processes and arrangements across Buckinghamshire."

SO WHY DID YOU OBJECT THEN?!

Exactement Hercule, it was a purely political objection to keep grammars happy. Academies will now be rocking the boat across the UK. Page 11 Times yesterday!

Not fully selective? First 11+ and now additional selection for those kids wanting to go to Highcrest. Fail that and what then?

I can't imagine any parent would deny their child a grammar school place to send them to Highcrest Academy, even if it meant keeping siblings together!

Misinformation again, it is not pass or fail to Highcrest. The problem with Highcrest is that it is massively oversubscribed already. Children and parents have already preferred Highcrest to Grammars, not only due to sibling issues, but also distance to travel and friendship networks.

As a parent my concerns are about whether or not my children would gain a place at their local school. I fully understand that this is not a pass of fail test, however the chances of getting a place have gone from 1 in 130 to 1 in 35. How on earth does this help local children? This isn't giving parents, and children, a choice, it's taking it away.

The issue to address, surely, is that in the selective system, some schools however local e.g. Wycombe High, RGS are not available at all to local children who fail the 11 plus. If all Wycombe schools were comprehensive and available to local children there would be less of a problem.
The chance of getting into Highcrest remains 140 of 500 due to oversubscription. It is time to have a close look at Cressex and see what their position is. Many other academies will now follow suit with Highcrest, my guess.

HerculePoirot wrote:
It's also great news that the Head sounds like she has no plans to move on, unlike many superheads. She should get a damehood for services to education!

As for Bucks CC!! How can they have nerve to say "The council has a responsibility, as champion of Buckinghamshire children, to ensure that a fair and equitable admissions process exists for all children and young people" while they prop up the 11+ system?! I'd like to see the Adjudicator get her teeth into that!

You summed it up well there - regrettably Ms Moynihan's success only makes a chink in the armour of 'selection' in this area - and not a very big chink - people in Aylesbury or Buckingham will remain unaffected and ‘Anna Smith’ is probably right nine out of ten times when she says:

I can't imagine any parent would deny their child a grammar school place to send them to Highcrest Academy, even if it meant keeping siblings together!

At the moment Ms Moynihan and her colleagues are a cloud no bigger than a man’s hand.

I bet the RGS are quaking in their boots…….NOT. As Highcrest have now shown any academy can make their own admission rules, do you really think RGS give two hoots whether the 11+ is scrapped or not, if all the anti 11+ people got their way & the 11+ was pulled, RGS wouldn’t worry at all they would just create their own 11+ entrance exam. Nothing would change for them or the children going there. Exactly the same parents would be wanting to send their children there, even if that entails extra coaching. RGS will always have the cream of students even in 10,20,30 years whether there is a BCC 11+ or not.
Miss Moynihan states "Now all families have a choice, they don’t have to split their children up they can send them all here in the knowledge their children can be stretched, not just in the classroom…” Surely she can’t be serious, Highcrests GCSE results show 49% 5 A-C inc. maths & English, Royal Grammar show approx 90%, do the maths, I think that’s what they call ironic! It will be interesting to get a break down of this years results, based on last years Highcrests results for Graphics showed you had a 5% chance of passing (1 pass out of 17 that took it, & that was only a C!), exactly the same in Electronics, in Geography it’s a 16% chance of passing, & remember these are subjects that the students have chosen to take. In fact on last years results students had more chance getting a U, ungraded, than they did of getting an A*. So exactly where are these students being stretched?
This will be why RGS didn’t object, they know that if you want a really top class education then The RGS will always beat Highcrest 11+ or no 11+.
Mr Newton seems to think that if you have one sibling that fails the 11+ & one that passes that you now have a choice to send them both to Highcrest. Really! So those parents would be willing to sacrifice a fantastic opportunity for a top class education & send their child to Highcrest for average education, oops there goes another one of those dratted pigs flying past again!
“Highcrest’s vice principal Ian Newton said it made the change for the good of its pupils and the Totteridge area after feedback from parents, coupled with the "unfairness" of the selective system and the old catchment.” If that truly is the case then why, especially as he says they are over-subscribed, are there MASSIVE billboards up in West Wycombe & Beaconsfield advertising Highcrests open evening & ‘selection’ tests, where did the money come from? Oh yes that’s right, our childrens education! Why would you be spending £1000s of £s on advertising miles outside of Totteridge, it wouldn't be to get children from Gerrards Cross, Stokenchurch etc would it!!
As I’ve said before Highcrest is a average to good school, their school report would read ‘must try harder’ but they’ve had years of ‘trying harder’ & it just isn’t working, so now they’ve decided the only way to do it is to ‘import’ ‘A’ class students & ‘export’ local ones, that way their results go up & every one elses go down, result, don’t need to try harder with the local children anymore!

Highcrest has gone from strength to strength in recent years. It used to suit all the other secondary modern schools when Hatters Lane was at the foot of the league tables. It is really strange that people will have a 'go' at Highcrest while completely accepting actual selection for the rest of the schools. Yes, it is hard to accept change in the system, but everyone knows it is needed. Failure to agree on how to change the system has led to inertia and grumbling over the years. Highcrest has the courage to shake up the system. Put your anger into action with selection surely?

Children who do not pass the 11+ should be taken out of the school system and given an apprenticeship in the work-place.

Ten places a year in waste collection, twenty in furniture, ten in water, ten in electricity etc...if these little herberts cannot add up, then surely they can make a chair leg or empty a bin?

The likes of Highcrest, Cressex and all the other non-pass schools should be shut down immediately and the money saved invested in apprenticeships. The only exception to this rule should be if a school can show a direct correlation between their school and a valid career path through some kind of specialised, non-academic qualification.

itstheprincipal wrote:
I bet the RGS are quaking in their boots…….NOT. As Highcrest have now shown any academy can make their own admission rules, do you really think RGS give two hoots whether the 11+ is scrapped or not, if all the anti 11+ people got their way & the 11+ was pulled, RGS wouldn’t worry at all they would just create their own 11+ entrance exam. Nothing would change for them or the children going there. Exactly the same parents would be wanting to send their children there, even if that entails extra coaching. RGS will always have the cream of students even in 10,20,30 years whether there is a BCC 11+ or not.
Miss Moynihan states "Now all families have a choice, they don’t have to split their children up they can send them all here in the knowledge their children can be stretched, not just in the classroom…” Surely she can’t be serious, Highcrests GCSE results show 49% 5 A-C inc. maths & English, Royal Grammar show approx 90%, do the maths, I think that’s what they call ironic! It will be interesting to get a break down of this years results, based on last years Highcrests results for Graphics showed you had a 5% chance of passing (1 pass out of 17 that took it, & that was only a C!), exactly the same in Electronics, in Geography it’s a 16% chance of passing, & remember these are subjects that the students have chosen to take. In fact on last years results students had more chance getting a U, ungraded, than they did of getting an A*. So exactly where are these students being stretched?
This will be why RGS didn’t object, they know that if you want a really top class education then The RGS will always beat Highcrest 11+ or no 11+.
Mr Newton seems to think that if you have one sibling that fails the 11+ & one that passes that you now have a choice to send them both to Highcrest. Really! So those parents would be willing to sacrifice a fantastic opportunity for a top class education & send their child to Highcrest for average education, oops there goes another one of those dratted pigs flying past again!
“Highcrest’s vice principal Ian Newton said it made the change for the good of its pupils and the Totteridge area after feedback from parents, coupled with the "unfairness" of the selective system and the old catchment.” If that truly is the case then why, especially as he says they are over-subscribed, are there MASSIVE billboards up in West Wycombe & Beaconsfield advertising Highcrests open evening & ‘selection’ tests, where did the money come from? Oh yes that’s right, our childrens education! Why would you be spending £1000s of £s on advertising miles outside of Totteridge, it wouldn't be to get children from Gerrards Cross, Stokenchurch etc would it!!
As I’ve said before Highcrest is a average to good school, their school report would read ‘must try harder’ but they’ve had years of ‘trying harder’ & it just isn’t working, so now they’ve decided the only way to do it is to ‘import’ ‘A’ class students & ‘export’ local ones, that way their results go up & every one elses go down, result, don’t need to try harder with the local children anymore!

Top class assessment!

Stalemate wrote:
Children who do not pass the 11+ should be taken out of the school system and given an apprenticeship in the work-place. Ten places a year in waste collection, twenty in furniture, ten in water, ten in electricity etc...if these little herberts cannot add up, then surely they can make a chair leg or empty a bin? The likes of Highcrest, Cressex and all the other non-pass schools should be shut down immediately and the money saved invested in apprenticeships. The only exception to this rule should be if a school can show a direct correlation between their school and a valid career path through some kind of specialised, non-academic qualification.

Sure this person must be joking.

Stalemate - have you seen a copy of the 11+ tests recently? They not only test academic answers but also the way in which a child thinks and the speed at which a child thinks - and taken at ten years old in most cases.
A school can only do so much with the pupils they have and there are those that may fail even given a grammar school placement - should those "Herberts" be kicked out after failing in year one and sent on an apprenticeship course instead?

AmyQ, if a child is not cutting the mustard in the classroom then he must be familiarised with the workplace as soon as is practical. If the brain is up to nowt, then these little urchins must learn a trade to be productive in the world.

I don't see what the problem is to be honest. They will get rest breaks just like in school, and most factories have a soft drinks machine so the kids are sorted.

Stalemate wrote:
Children who do not pass the 11+ should be taken out of the school system and given an apprenticeship in the work-place.

Ten places a year in waste collection, twenty in furniture, ten in water, ten in electricity etc...if these little herberts cannot add up, then surely they can make a chair leg or empty a bin?

The likes of Highcrest, Cressex and all the other non-pass schools should be shut down immediately and the money saved invested in apprenticeships. The only exception to this rule should be if a school can show a direct correlation between their school and a valid career path through some kind of specialised, non-academic qualification.

… if a school can show a direct correlation between their school and a valid career path through some kind of specialised, non-academic qualification.

'non-academic qualification' - well that rules out all the local grammar schools with their humanistic heritage and specialisms in the performing arts.

AmyQ wrote:
Stalemate - have you seen a copy of the 11+ tests recently? They not only test academic answers but also the way in which a child thinks and the speed at which a child thinks - and taken at ten years old in most cases.
A school can only do so much with the pupils they have and there are those that may fail even given a grammar school placement - should those "Herberts" be kicked out after failing in year one and sent on an apprenticeship course instead?

'Stalemate' also seems to think it's okay to keep the ‘herberts’ away from knowledge of art and literature and foreign language and cultures – I suppose you don’t need them to empty bins. It would be 11+ selection taken to an extreme were it not for the fact that grammar schools – dispensing often ‘academic’ knowledge which the school could not

… show a direct correlation … (with) a valid career path through some kind of specialised, non-academic qualification.

My word, there are some seriously narrow minded people living in this county.

From my point the 11+ system in Bucks is unfair. Children who can afford tutors pass, children who can't fail.
There is an increase in the need to LSA's at grammar schools as less able children are taught how to pass the 11+ but do not have the level of achievement grammar schools are used to.
I have witnessed 10 year olds in tears after their allowed familiarisation test because they don't get it. Their peers whose parents have paid up for tutors might actually stand a chance.
It's not a test of intelligence anymore, just wealth.
A lot of perfectly intelligent children won't pass the 11+ because they aren't fast enough.

I didn't do it because where I was raised it was not the done thing, but I still passed GCSEs, A Levels and got myself a degree, as did a lot of my fellow comprehensive peers. If I'd have been shoved into work at 11 I wouldn't have. Don't be so quick to write children off.

Stalemate wrote:
AmyQ, if a child is not cutting the mustard in the classroom then he must be familiarised with the workplace as soon as is practical. If the brain is up to nowt, then these little urchins must learn a trade to be productive in the world.

I don't see what the problem is to be honest. They will get rest breaks just like in school, and most factories have a soft drinks machine so the kids are sorted.

‘Stalemate’ seems to be confining his observations exclusively to a possibly imaginary moron class who at the earliest opportunity should be sent out to do unskilled menial work for the rest of us.

Learning a trade does not have to be low paid "menial" work.

Many men and women go on to earn considerably more than most graduates by learning a trade well (plumbing, electrical contracting etc....)

ImperturbableLawrenc
e, I am afraid that it is you, and successive governments, who see anyone leaving school early as part of a "moron-class" .
If non-academic children are given a viable future with a trade then they will succeed in life. Getting government, parents and society to accept that some children are non-academic is the hardest thing.

Stalemate wrote:
Learning a trade does not have to be low paid "menial" work.

Many men and women go on to earn considerably more than most graduates by learning a trade well (plumbing, electrical contracting etc....)

ImperturbableLawrenc

e, I am afraid that it is you, and successive governments, who see anyone leaving school early as part of a "moron-class" .
If non-academic children are given a viable future with a trade then they will succeed in life. Getting government, parents and society to accept that some children are non-academic is the hardest thing.

Many men and women go on to earn considerably more than most graduates by learning a trade well (plumbing, electrical contracting etc....)

It is often said that plumbers earn more than graduates – I don’t think they earn more than graduates in law or medicine (I’ve paid for the services of both recently) - that’s a bit of an urban myth – otherwise why would well-off parents pay for tuition to get their children through common entrance and the 11+ if they could put them into a well-paid job aged 16 after a year at evening classes with tube cutters and brazing torches? More broadly all you say is based on the idea that the entire purpose of education is simply to train us for our job when we leave school and that electricians and plumbers don’t want or need to know anything about our cultural heritage (bit of a woolly phrase but I mean subjects like literature and history and foreign languages). Some plumbers and electricians I know are very clever men (they usually are men) and are entitled to a chance to know about England in the 19th Century or the poems of W.H. Auden just as much as the people in so-called ‘professional’ jobs – neither class of people use these subjects in their daily work.

ImperturbableLawrenc

e, I am afraid that it is you, and successive governments, who see anyone leaving school early as part of a "moron-class" .

Yeah stalemate - I didn’t realise I’d got those ideas – I wonder where I got them from - you’ve made me take a long hard look at myself.
Who was it who said:

Ten places a year in waste collection, twenty in furniture, ten in water, ten in electricity etc...if these little herberts cannot add up, then surely they can make a chair leg or empty a bin?

and:

If the brain is up to nowt, then these little urchins must learn a trade to be productive in the world.

?
and:

Getting government, parents and society to accept that some children are non-academic is the hardest thing.

You don’t say where it is the hardest thing to accept the idea that some children are stupid and too stupid to be very much worth educating – sorry I meant to say ‘some children are non-academic’ – it’s obviously not a serious problem round here though as the whole system in this county is based on division into ‘academic’ and ‘non-academic’ from the age of ten. I accept that a lot of people are not interested in studying and learning but that is not a justification for the ridiculous ‘assessment’ that is currently carried out at age ten or for your even more absurd notion of casting them loose on oceans of ignorance doing menial work for the minimum wage and tea breaks at age ten.

.

when i applied for my daughters place at highcrest through the councils system she was refused even though her brother and sister were both there already .. we live twenty mins walk from the school .. she was offered holmer green which is over three miles away lol .. i fought to get her in highcrest and got her in .. i had the same problem with her younger brother who was again refused and offered cressex . i again had to fight to get him in . my youngest sons school is five mins from our house but is not in the councils catchment area . but the school fifteen mins away is . . how is it fair for a young girl to travel three miles to school when there is one within walking distance .. quite a lot of grammer school kids pass with just a few marks over which will put them at the bottom set of the grammer school . but in a comprehensive they would be at the top . if they pass with flying colours fair enough . its a catch 22 situation . but its the kids who suffer . its ok to encourage your kids to achieve higher results but thats what college is for and university . the government put too much stress on kids and parents do too . expectation can be very damaging to some kids . school should be fun not stressfull . i agree that non academic kids should be given part time jobs to learn a skill rather than go down the exam route . i know some very skilled carpenters that can make fantastic furniture but cant use a computer and take a long time to write . but numbers and measurments no prob . my son has dyslexia but is flying through science . but he is behind in english . but can do somersaults in the air and perform skilled moves in martial arts . . my eldest has exams and qualifications coming out of his ears .. and is a qualified microsoft technician . he cant get a job in IT. and now works in a cafe . so its all well and good them getting an education . but companies want experienced people . the only jobs i see for graduates say training is provided .. .. take two people a non academic and an academic give the academic a manual to read on how to work a coffee machine and show the non academic one how to use it . give them both ten mins training .. who do you think will make the coffee quickest . the success of a person is not measured on their academic level . quite a lot of graduates dont use their qualifications and end up doing something else . if a company has a right to select candidates why not a school . we should not take our schools for granted and expect a place . we should earn them

That is an important point that Highcrest is already massively oversubscribed and some local parents already choose Hazlemere, Holmer Green and Cressex schools as the first choice. Perhaps Highcrest could be expanded?

bonkers2010 wrote:
when i applied for my daughters place at highcrest through the councils system she was refused even though her brother and sister were both there already .. we live twenty mins walk from the school .. she was offered holmer green which is over three miles away lol .. i fought to get her in highcrest and got her in .. i had the same problem with her younger brother who was again refused and offered cressex . i again had to fight to get him in . my youngest sons school is five mins from our house but is not in the councils catchment area . but the school fifteen mins away is . . how is it fair for a young girl to travel three miles to school when there is one within walking distance .. quite a lot of grammer school kids pass with just a few marks over which will put them at the bottom set of the grammer school . but in a comprehensive they would be at the top . if they pass with flying colours fair enough . its a catch 22 situation . but its the kids who suffer . its ok to encourage your kids to achieve higher results but thats what college is for and university . the government put too much stress on kids and parents do too . expectation can be very damaging to some kids . school should be fun not stressfull . i agree that non academic kids should be given part time jobs to learn a skill rather than go down the exam route . i know some very skilled carpenters that can make fantastic furniture but cant use a computer and take a long time to write . but numbers and measurments no prob . my son has dyslexia but is flying through science . but he is behind in english . but can do somersaults in the air and perform skilled moves in martial arts . . my eldest has exams and qualifications coming out of his ears .. and is a qualified microsoft technician . he cant get a job in IT. and now works in a cafe . so its all well and good them getting an education . but companies want experienced people . the only jobs i see for graduates say training is provided .. .. take two people a non academic and an academic give the academic a manual to read on how to work a coffee machine and show the non academic one how to use it . give them both ten mins training .. who do you think will make the coffee quickest . the success of a person is not measured on their academic level . quite a lot of graduates dont use their qualifications and end up doing something else . if a company has a right to select candidates why not a school . we should not take our schools for granted and expect a place . we should earn them

The absurdities described in the first eleven lines of your post would be unnecessary with comprehensive schools.

quite a lot of grammer school kids pass with just a few marks over which will put them at the bottom set of the grammer school . but in a comprehensive they would be at the top

It’s as exact as that is it – the top pupils of the secondary modern schools could have got into a grammar if they had scored a few more points? This is the easy dishonest justification for educational ‘selection’ – nobody can deny children have different aptitudes and intellectual power so we will re-define the 11+ as a means of identifying different talents and deny that it is the earliest skirmish in the class war that a child gets involved in.

its ok to encourage your kids to achieve higher results but thats what college is for and university

So you musn’t start encouraging them to do better before college and university? People who people pay for 11+ and Common Entrance tuition for 9 and 10 year olds are making a silly mistake then – unless success at school before university as well as at university determines your chance in life and the 11+ is what enables kids to get to a good university – if the 11+ doesn’t measure intellectual ability with pinpoint accuracy as you say what is the point of it?

i know some very skilled carpenters that can make fantastic furniture but cant use a computer and take a long time to write . but numbers and measurments no prob . my son has dyslexia but is flying through science . but he is behind in english . but can do somersaults in the air and perform skilled moves in martial arts . . my eldest has exams and qualifications coming out of his ears .. and is a qualified microsoft technician . he cant get a job in IT. and now works in a cafe . so its all well and good them getting an education .

Why do supporters of the 11+ always have to justify it with a wealth of anecdote often referring to family members and filled with the idea of ‘respecting difference’? (Another ting they employ is references to websites where you can ‘learn’ or ‘do your own research’)

. the only jobs i see for graduates say training is provided

What does that mean?

take two people a non academic and an academic give the academic a manual to read on how to work a coffee machine and show the non academic one how to use it . give them both ten mins training .. who do you think will make the coffee quickest .

Another little parable like the ones above. (I think the academic one would be quicker at coffee making btw.)

the success of a person is not measured on their academic level

It usually is when people go for their first job interview.

. quite a lot of graduates dont use their qualifications and end up doing something else

Most graduates don’t – not just ‘quite a lot’ – the mere fact that they are graduates, often from a particular university, gives them possible entrance into well-paid professions. (Your point is sound apart from that – Boris Johnson was a graduate in Classics before he became a national journalist and an MP and the Leader of the GLA and possibly a future primr minister and - do you know - I have never heard him talking Classical Greek or Latin – maybe he should have done an apprenticeship.)

if a company has a right to select candidates why not a school

Because unlike a company (which can rationally justify its wishes in a job candidate) a school is paid for through council tax by the parents of the children (and 70% of children round here are not selected they are rejected).

we should not take our schools for granted and expect a place . we should earn them

How does a ten year old ‘earn’ something – you make it sound like a noble endeavour. We should take our schools for granted and have confidence in them up to a point – we pay for them and 70% of kids get a raw deal from them.

faircuppa wrote:
That is an important point that Highcrest is already massively oversubscribed and some local parents already choose Hazlemere, Holmer Green and Cressex schools as the first choice. Perhaps Highcrest could be expanded?

Yeah let's make it comprehensive in its intake - and all the other local schools.

Yes, that is an obvious next step.

In reality, it's still Hatters Lane Secondary School. Are the Grammar Schools worried? Not on your nelly!!!!!

The other secondary schools might be as they attempt to cream off the best of the 11+ failures!!

But ask yourself this question? If you were a parent, would you want your kids to go to school in Hatters Lane?

In reply to ‘smuggles’ at 12:40pm Wed :

If we improved the existing schools, would that not address many of these issues and then just make selection about teaching methods and learning environment rather than opportunity?

If we improved the secondary moderns into schools equal to grammar schools then there would be no point in selection and we would have comprehensive education (though I’m glad you implicitly agree that the system at present is about ‘opportunity’ and not some rubbish about ‘pace’ or ’aptitude’). Why select kids at all? While we have the two parallel systems described in ‘itstheprincipal�
�s letter there will never be just and equal opportunity or a real motivation towards it from thos who run the system – and it’s so absurd to condemn 70% of children to a second rate education – the lucky 30% would be no worse off in a comprehensive system. The wonderfully-aptly named ‘bonkers’ claims ‘quite a lot of grammer school kids pass with just a few marks over which will put them at the bottom set of the grammer school . but in a comprehensive they would be at the top’. If they are at the top of a comprehensive school they get a different education to someone – wherever they are – in a grammar school – on the basis of a handful of IQ points.

Lawrence, why is the selective system a con? I can sit here and list more than 80 people (myself included) in my school year alone who would not have been afforded the same opportunities had they been sent to their local comprehensive. Whilst this is anecdotal, is that not something positive?

It’s a con because so many people vote for a political party that keeps it going although it is manifestly not in the interests of those voters’ children and is based on the manifestly absurd idea that 30% of children have to be carefully nurtured in a special environment. (I emailed Mike Appleyard about why the Conservative party supported ‘selection’ earlier this year and he was unable to explain why – at first he told me it was because local people voted for it and expressed satisfaction with it referring to his family before referring me to a website – this is the man in BCC Conservative Party who is responsible for education! I think the Conservative Party would be voted for and elected with an increased majority if it started ‘comprehensivising
’ local secondary schools.) It’s a con because people support it because it encourages talent when it discourages it. It’s a con because people claim that it is concerned with aptitude rather than social class and it’s a con because it is so wildly inaccurate – I got involved in a confrontation on this subject earlier this year and listed numerous people of the most superlative intellectual ability who had failed the 11+ and/or gone to comprehensive schools - some before becoming the heads of Colleges and departments at Russell Group Universities.
Like you say, your 80+ people are anecdotal - I could probably name 80+ people who did not get the opportunities you and the 80+ other people did got because they didn’t get to grammar schools – do you really believe that you would have fallen into some slough of despond and ignorance if you had gone to a comprehensive school with the 80+ referred to in your post – your talents would gone unnoticed and undeveloped – what do you think happens to bright children in adjoining counties where they have abolished the 11+? So no it is not a positive – you and the 80+ others could have done equally well in a comprehensive system without the waste of talent involved in rejective education.

And yes these people all grew up in High Wycombe - Castlefield, Sands, Hughenden, Downley, Wycombe Marsh, Micklefield - all those upper class areas we know and love.

I dare say they did come from those areas and how typical were they (factual and detailed answer to that please.)

I am not saying that those who do not pass should not be given the same opportunities,

But you are supporting a system that does exactly that (see ‘itstheprincipal�
�s letter)?

but I am all for creating an environment to learn for those who have and ability to excel academically, vocationally or otherwise depending on the individual.

If you knew anything about me you would know that I support the encouragement of academic excellence and respect for people with ‘vocational’ talents from the very bottom of my heart (I have experience of both) and the present system does not do that – it provides first-class opportunities for a minority who could get by without them better than less-talented individuals, while pawning off the majority with a second-rate and failing alternative.

And going back to a question you posed in an earlier post, "if the 11+ doesn’t measure intellectual ability with pinpoint accuracy as you say what is the point of it?" The point is to try to identify those who may be able to thrive in the Grammar school environment.”

Thank you for pinpointing the fundamental weakness in the case for rejective education – it is directed to benefitting less than one in three children, who, in your own words, ‘may be able to thrive in a grammar school environment’ – outside it they presumably couldn’t and it is all right to relegate between 6 and 7 out of 10 children to secondary moderns for that reason.
I posed the question to ‘bonkers’ in reply to the words of his that I quoted above and I would quote my words to him again in full:

It’s as exact as that is it – the top pupils of the secondary modern schools could have got into a grammar if they had scored a few more points? This is the easy dishonest justification for educational ‘selection’ – nobody can deny children have different aptitudes and intellectual power so we will re-define the 11+ as a means of identifying different talents and deny that it is the earliest skirmish in the class war that a child gets involved in.

- presumably only a few IQ points separate the bottom of the grammar school intake from the top of the secondary modern intake and I asked it because it seems beyond senseless that a child with an IQ of 119 should have different prospects in life from one with an IQ of 122. That is if the system worked – because it is also beyond reason that a test of any kind for ten year olds can measure their capacities in the future with such pinpoint accuracy.

By the way ‘smuggles’

Why do people who criticise the selective system focus on denying opportunities to those who pass the 11+ …

I am sure none of us are into denying opportunity – I support comprehensive education for the opposite reason – to extend those opportunities – only the wilfully naïve pretend that the talents of 11+ successes will be wasted unless they are all put together in small selective enclave schools.

As a boy who attended grammar school in High Wycombe, I was always amazed just how many boys were driven and bussed in from out of town.
In fact, out of a year group of some 150 boys, perhaps only twenty or so lived in town.
If it is the case that boys from leafier postcodes outperform others in selective tests then that will certainly be an unpalatable truth for many.
Looking back at my time in grammar school nearly thirty years ago, I have only now been mature enough to put into context my time there.
I went on to secure a good Oxbridge degree, so have nothing to grumble about. However, I would happily end the grammar school system tomorrow given the chance!

As I mentioned in previous posts, there is a need for two types of school, academic and non-academic.

The standards in academic schools need to be much higher than presently seen in the grammar schools. We need the return of Classics to the curriculum, a rigorous approach to oral and written Modern Languages and to the teaching of theoretical Mathematics and Science.

With such high standards, we would see a return of self-selection; whereby pupils approaching secondary school age, and their parents, would inherently know what is right for them.

Decades ago, no-one ever grumbled over a secondary education in a non-academic establishment; it was seen as an opportunity to access the workplace and put down some routes in a trade.

It is the leniency in academic standards that has allowed the myth of university for all to propagate. The only reason parents support it is because the average Johnny can now pass his way through to tertiary education.

Parents are realists, they have to be, no matter their own educational achievements. If the State implements a program that offers something meaningful to all of secondary school age then there is no reason for it not to secure wide support and acclaim.

***roots*** ;-P

ImpeturbableLawrence wrote:
By the way ‘smuggles’

Why do people who criticise the selective system focus on denying opportunities to those who pass the 11+ …

I am sure none of us are into denying opportunity – I support comprehensive education for the opposite reason – to extend those opportunities – only the wilfully naïve pretend that the talents of 11+ successes will be wasted unless they are all put together in small selective enclave schools.

But the fundamental weakness in what you say is that you deny those who have the ability to excel academically in the Grammar school environment. By grouping all abilities together you need to cater for the lowest common denominator (for want of a better expression) and teach to that level.

In reply to ‘ImpeturbableLawre
nce’ at 9:11pm Wed :

Why select kids at all? - Because (much like streaming into sets in subjects) it allows children to learn in the environment that will engage them the most. Grammar school is hard work in a disciplined environment, whether you or other like it or not, it would not suit all children.

"It’s a con because so many people vote for a political party that keeps it going although it is manifestly not in the interests of those voters’ children and is based on the manifestly absurd idea that 30% of children have to be carefully nurtured in a special environment. "

So you are saying that those 30% should be penalised because comprehensives are not in a position to cater for their rate of learning or potential level of achievement academically?

"It’s a con because people support it because it encourages talent when it discourages it. It’s a con because people claim that it is concerned with aptitude rather than social class and it’s a con because it is so wildly inaccurate"

I beleive it's a case of terminology. In my book, it's streaming (as happens with schools anyway) and provides a different kind of learning environment. If it's so wildly inaccurate, then please explain the academic success of the Grammar schools? Andsocial class, money etc does not guarantee success, and aptitude is a major factor.

"I got involved in a confrontation on this subject earlier this year and listed numerous people of the most superlative intellectual ability who had failed the 11+ and/or gone to comprehensive schools - some before becoming the heads of Colleges and departments at Russell Group Universities. "

I am not saying that anybody who doesnt go to a Grammar school cant or wont achieve so cant really se your point here. I would suggest they were nurtured in the environment that suited them and set them up for success.

"do you really believe that you would have fallen into some slough of despond and ignorance if you had gone to a comprehensive school with the 80+ referred to in your post "

I would not have achieved the level of academic success that I did because the environment at the Grammar school suited my personality and academic ability. I was not an A grade student but was pushed to achieve my potential. I was (supposedly) clever but lazy - would Hatters Lane have let me coast through doing enough to get by or push me to excel?

"I dare say they did come from those areas and how typical were they (factual and detailed answer to that please.)"

How typical were they? Working parents, from Binmen to Accountants, different incomes and ethnic backgrounds, how typical is anyone? Not sure what details you want...my mum was a single parent and receptionist, my friends dad a binman, another friends parents ran a shop.....

"the present system does not do that – it provides first-class opportunities for a minority who could get by without them better than less-talented individuals, while pawning off the majority with a second-rate and failing alternative. "

Then focus your efforts on improving the "second-rate and failing alternative" surely? Dont deny the opportunity to the minority just because the other areas are failing.

"Thank you for pinpointing the fundamental weakness in the case for rejective education – it is directed to benefitting less than one in three children, who, in your own words, ‘may be able to thrive in a grammar school environment’ "

So giving opportunities and environment approriate to individual needs is a weakness??? Like I keep saying, if Comprehensives do not cater for the needs to the students they have, then make changes there. And, the Grammar school I went to was, and I presume still is, a different environment where not all pupils would have the ability to thrive because it would not suit their needs or pace of learning. Personally I think all children should learn Latin as I did, but that's almost a separate debate.

I think in terms of providing fair access to opportunities and the right environment, we agree, but I completely disagree with your premise that we should deny opportunity to those who get into a Grammar school just because they are in the minority.

The misinformation on this thread goes on and on.

Education throughout the world has always been positioned to provide a high level of learning for those able to cope and simultaneously a base level of learning for all.

This is not about a higher tier and lower tier of academic attainment, but two distinct life paths: academic and otherwise.

It is probably the collapse in the UK's industrial and manufacturing base that has precipitated this confusion, the
"otherwise" option no longer considered viable and everyone piling on to the good ship Academia.

It is testament to the depth of poo that this country finds itself in that the Government cannot even table a sketch of how non-academic, secondary age study might look.

In reply to smuggles says... 1:40pm

But the fundamental weakness in what you say is that you deny those who have the ability to excel academically in the Grammar school environment. By grouping all abilities together you need to cater for the lowest common denominator (for want of a better expression) and teach to that level.

I’m not going to get into a slogging match with you but it’s not a weakness fundamental or otherwise – these kids don’t need to be put into a special environment to succeed - that is why no county that has abolished grammar schools and the 11+ has ever brought them back and why they have equal or better results from comprehensive schools.

What Miss Moynihan fails to comprehend when she states ‘ Buckinghamshire is no longer a fully selective education system’ is that all she has done is replace one selective system with another. The only reason for the new tests are as a status symbol to cover up for a somewhat average education. Despite what others may think I’m not anti-Highcrest per se, I’d have the same issues if another school had brought in this ridiculous excuse of a test for selection to what at the end of the day is just an ordinary school, no better than any other secondary/upper school, & in many cases worse!
Lawrence, Smuggles & Stalemate have made some applaudable comments, & if I’m reading it correctly we agree on a lot of things. As I said before BCC 11+ or not the RGS will continue to select its own pupils even if it has to bring in its own 11+, & rightly so. The kind of education they give their pupils is second to none, it certainly can’t be matched by Highcrest.
When Miss Moynihan states ‘We are not a grammar school, we are not an upper school, we are something different’, no you’re not you’re just a school. I wouldn’t even class you as an academy, I know it’s not you who came up with this smokescreen of a name, I blame the government for that. Back in the days an academy was something special, something to be proud of such as The Royal Academy, & the Academy of Dance etc, not some common or garden school. If any school should be an academy it should be the RGS.
If a child wants to go to the RGS they should not be denied that right, however if they fail the 11+ then they should be denied the right, harsh I know & I’m not sure how we correct this, that is for another discussion, but standards should not be allowed to drop otherwise you end up with the position mentioned before whereby you bring the school down to the lowest common denominator. RGS is not for everyone, you don’t have to take the 11+ if you don’t want to, but if you are intelligent or lucky enough to go the educational journey will be second to none. It is something you will never get at Highcrest, it’s like comparing fish & chips to a gourmet meal. I have no factual basis for this but I would imagine every child leaving RGS can spell, could the same be said for Highcrest?
Every child that passes the 11+ should embrace the education they will get at the RGS. However if your child passes but you think they will get just as good an education at Highcrest you are grossly mistaken, as I said before they are as different as chalk & cheese, & always will be. There will be no Spanish, no German, no ski trips/rugby tours, no photography, no astronomy, no Gifted & Talented, no anything compared to what is on offer at the RGS, & before anyone thinks I went to the RGS or Highcrest school, or work there, or have children there, the answer is no on all three counts. I just happened to go to a good secondary school where we were taught well & the teachers pushed us to do well, a local school for local children where they managed to get the very best out of us, I am just a concerned professional person concerned about the future of our children’s education, something Highcrest disregard. If a local child is not good enough they are not interested, bringing in their ‘selection’ test gives them a reason to pass them by to try & get children from the RGS, Gerrards Cross etc.
I could go on but it annoys me that one of my posts above have been removed, no idea what the reason was, there was nothing ‘false, abusive or malicious’, on the satisfaction side it means somebody at Highcrest is reading all our posts, & maybe mine was a bit too close for comfort. Home truths spring to mind!!

The comments on who can provide the best education somewhat confuse me when Bucks County Council have themselves said and i quote ' an upper school can provide an adequate education for a grammar school qualified pupil'
If BCC don't see the need to send the clever ones to a grammar school then pupils, regardless of ability could go to their local upper school

smuggles wrote:

ImpeturbableLawrence wrote:
By the way ‘smuggles’

Why do people who criticise the selective system focus on denying opportunities to those who pass the 11+ …

I am sure none of us are into denying opportunity – I support comprehensive education for the opposite reason – to extend those opportunities – only the wilfully naïve pretend that the talents of 11+ successes will be wasted unless they are all put together in small selective enclave schools.

But the fundamental weakness in what you say is that you deny those who have the ability to excel academically in the Grammar school environment. By grouping all abilities together you need to cater for the lowest common denominator (for want of a better expression) and teach to that level.

By grouping all abilities together you need to cater for the lowest common denominator (for want of a better expression) and teach to that level.

Ah! The dreadful spectre of talented children being dragged down to the 'lowest common denominator' - what does that mean and why and how does it do that?

That phrase is just a meaningless mantra - I say they will all be 'dragged up to the highest common denominator' (for want of a better expression).

HOW are they dragged down to the lowest common denominator and why is it that so many counties have not experienced this after abolishing grammar schools and instituting comprehensives?
If there is a base of academically gifted children there the ones of medium ability would be able to ignore the lowest common denmoinator.

Catflap wrote:
The comments on who can provide the best education somewhat confuse me when Bucks County Council have themselves said and i quote ' an upper school can provide an adequate education for a grammar school qualified pupil'
If BCC don't see the need to send the clever ones to a grammar school then pupils, regardless of ability could go to their local upper school

This also asks the questions why did BCC oppose the efforts of Ms Moynihan, which individuals on the council did so, and which elected representatives told them to do this?
At other times the system is defended because it would harm 11+ successes who would be like roses withering in the unsympathetic atmosphere of comprehensives, and at other times again because it gives ‘different’ education to children with ‘different talents’. The whole system is bafflingly irrational - ‘selection’ for life of about 30% of children barely old enough to cross the road - based on the idea that the 11+ is an extraordinarily accurate device, that should be used for giving a better education to those already benefitted by nature with better than average talents and who would ‘suffer’ or be ‘denied’ what is their due if they were not segregated and hot housed while everyone else takes their chance in other schools.

ImpeturbableLawrence wrote:

Catflap wrote:
The comments on who can provide the best education somewhat confuse me when Bucks County Council have themselves said and i quote ' an upper school can provide an adequate education for a grammar school qualified pupil'
If BCC don't see the need to send the clever ones to a grammar school then pupils, regardless of ability could go to their local upper school

This also asks the questions why did BCC oppose the efforts of Ms Moynihan, which individuals on the council did so, and which elected representatives told them to do this?
At other times the system is defended because it would harm 11+ successes who would be like roses withering in the unsympathetic atmosphere of comprehensives, and at other times again because it gives ‘different’ education to children with ‘different talents’. The whole system is bafflingly irrational - ‘selection’ for life of about 30% of children barely old enough to cross the road - based on the idea that the 11+ is an extraordinarily accurate device, that should be used for giving a better education to those already benefitted by nature with better than average talents and who would ‘suffer’ or be ‘denied’ what is their due if they were not segregated and hot housed while everyone else takes their chance in other schools.

Sorry the phrase 'other schools' at the end of my last post should have read 'different but equal schools for children who simply could not make the pace in the highly-charged academic atmosphere of grammar schools'.

In reply to smuggles yesterday at 2:46pm
I don’t think I’m going to make any more posts after this – as I said before I’m not going to get into a slogging match with you, particularly as previous posts of mine answer questions you are now putting – but:
Firstly when you say ‘comprehensive’ in this post you apparently mean ‘secondary modern’ – that is schools for 11+ failures.
When I say ‘comprehensive’ I mean a school that is genuinely comprehensive and all-inclusive in its intake in areas where there is no ‘selection’ at age 10. When I say ‘secondary modern’ in connection with Buckinghamshire I mean what you mean when you say ‘comprehensive’ – that is a school for 11+ failures.
(Schools for 11+ failures are terminologically similar in this way to black Americans in the US (‘n i g g e r’ to ‘negro’ to ‘colored’ to ‘African-American�
�� et cetera) in that they are renamed periodically because their names get such negative associations (‘secondary modern’ to ‘secondary’ to ‘community school’ to ‘upper school’ and so on.)


*

it (selection) allows children to learn in the environment that will engage them the most.

This is a considerable assumption on your part and in my view doesn’t apply to all of the 30% who currently pass (how many stupid adults have you encountered who went to the RGS?) or all of the 70% of children who fail the 11+ as it is based on the idea that the 11+ can judge talent and personal character with pinpoint accuracy for the future at age 10. How do you know they won’t be ‘engaged’ equally well in a comprehensive?

Grammar school is hard work in a disciplined environment, whether you or other like it or not, it would not suit all children

This is true and I would say that if you got rid of grammar schools and replaced them with comprehensives these dogged monastic types you are scared of discouraging could work hard there instead, while the 70% got a fair chance as well.


In reply to my comment:

It’s a con because so many people vote for a political party that keeps it going although it is manifestly not in the interests of those voters’ children and is based on the manifestly absurd idea that 30% of children have to be carefully nurtured in a special environment.

You say:

So you are saying that those 30% should be penalised because comprehensives are not in a position to cater for their rate of learning or potential level of achievement academically?

I take it by ‘comprehensive’ in this sentence you mean ‘secondary modern’ (see above).
The answer to your question is no – dunno how you worked that out – I am saying that the 30% should be allowed to strut their funky stuff in a comprehensive school and that way the70% are not penalised – in fact the false assessments in both groups could swap places. Are you saying the 70% should be continue to be ‘penalised’? ) Oh wait! I know you’re not – they need a less strenuous environment than a grammar school under the present system - I forgot!



In reply to my comment:

It’s a con because people support it because it encourages talent when it discourages it. It’s a con because people claim that it is concerned with aptitude rather than social class and it’s a con because it is so wildly inaccurate

You say:

In my book, it's streaming (as happens with schools anyway) and provides a different kind of learning environment.

In my book it’s analogous to streaming but streaming in a school is reversible – you can’t reverse 11+ failure and you could have streaming in a comprehensive school. (Please don’t mention the nugatory 13+ exam or I shall scream – why have an 11+ to institute irrationality and then a 13+supposedly to rectify the anomalies.)

If it's so wildly inaccurate, then please explain the academic success of the Grammar schools?

They are successful because the system chooses the children the very most likely to succeed in any case and then coaches them while discarding all others – that’s not a brilliant recipe for ‘(allowing) children to learn in the environment that will engage them the most’ – it’s more like a self-fulfilling prophecy in a sympathetic atmosphere, or intellectual Darwinism where only the very fittest survive and weakness – even if temporary or limited - causes extinction.
If it’s not inaccurate why is it that children who are closely matched throughout junior school suddenly become widely different after the age of 10 based on a few IQ points one day at an examination room at school and have correspondingly widely different educations?.

Andsocial class, money etc does not guarantee success,

No they don’t but they seem to play a hell of a big part (I recently heard a single mum with a bright nine-year-old say she knew someone who coached for the 11+ ‘but she charges £25 per hour so that’s out of the question’). The roles of class and status are also why I think people like you are being dishonest when you pretend that the 11+ and grammar schools are to do with ‘academic ability’, ’aptitude’, and ’pace’ et cetera.

and aptitude is a major factor.

Yes and aptitude does not need to be singled out on a rough and ready basis at age ten and hot housed to succeed – I agree above that ability is one cause of the artificially inflated success of grammar schools.

I am not saying that anybody who doesnt go to a Grammar school cant or wont achieve so cant really se your point here.

I know you’re not saying that and you are missing the point – you are getting things back to front – what I am saying is that all these people would have been wasted if they had failed their 11+ in Bucks – some failed it elsewhere but were saved by comprehensivisation and others never took it so they all went to comprehensive schools and were saved and not wasted. If you are saying it makes no difference whether you pass or fail the 11+ then why have it – let’s save money by abolishing the test and instituting comprehensive schools.

The I would suggest they were nurtured in the environment that suited them and set them up for success.

Yes that’s right they were – in comprehensive schools – everyone can have such an environment there. (It’s irresistibly beguiling the idea that only in grammar schools can the talented be enabled to fulfil their potential!)

I would not have achieved the level of academic success that I did because the environment at the Grammar school suited my personality and academic ability. I was not an A grade student but was pushed to achieve my potential. I was (supposedly) clever but lazy

I won’t comment on the fact we have more anecdotal stuff and that we don’t know you wouldn’t have achieved your potential there because you never went to a comprehensive – plenty of other kids do well at them. Are you suggesting that 70% of children should go to secondary modern schools so that doubtfully talented individuals like yourself could have the best possible environment for your talents in a grammar school?

- would Hatters Lane have let me coast through doing enough to get by or push me to excel?

Probably not but that’s hardly an argument for grammar schools - Hatters Lane and all the other secondary modern schools still in existence are intended not to make children excel as part of the system that you support – do you really believe you were naturally dedicated to an intellectual sphere if you were ‘pushed to achieve(your) potential’ and that the 11+ established that, and the children as clever as, or more clever than yourself, who failed it did not deserve what you got? Or that if you had been perhaps a handful of IQ points lower at 11+ and you had gone to Hatters Lane it would have been a good thing and ordained by nature as established by the 11+? (Please don’t reply to that with an argument based on the idea that the 11+ did establish exactly that - and it would have been unfair on the Hatters Lane-ite to have to deal with the things nature had selected you to do while you might have been ‘penalised’ among the oiks.)


In reply to my comment:

"I dare say they did come from those areas and how typical were they (factual and detailed answer to that please.)

You say:

How typical were they? Working parents, from Binmen to Accountants, different incomes and ethnic backgrounds, how typical is anyone? Not sure what details you want...my mum was a single parent and receptionist, my friends dad a binman, another friends parents ran a shop.....

Not very detailed – bit anecdotal isn’t it? Oh wait – see next point.
‘Not sure what details you want’ - I’d just like to know how typical they were – this is the anecdotal stuff you ‘selection’ supporters always resort to – ‘I knew a working class family in a sink housing estate et cetera – none of them ever been to university - et cetera’. You mentioned a figure of 80+ people in your post – that’s probably the entire complement of binmen for the whole of High Wycombe. And are you bold]still at grammar school – do you know how much a ‘Working parent’ accountant charges - you need one for a parent to afford the 11+tuition fees?


In reply to my comment:

the present system does not do that – it provides first-class opportunities for a minority who could get by without them better than less-talented individuals, while pawning off the majority with a second-rate and failing alternative.

You say:

Then focus your efforts on improving the "second-rate and failing alternative" surely? Dont deny the opportunity to the minority just because the other areas are failing.

`

This is the stupid but thoughtfully commonsense-sounding ‘let’s level them up not level themdown’ argument when as I pointed out above, secondary modern schools are intended to provide an inferior education. If you introduced comprehensive education then it would improve secondary moderns as you are suggesting and not damage the excellence of grammar schools.
I answered this in an earlier post when I said:

If we improved the secondary moderns into schools equal to grammar schools then there would be no point in selection and we would have comprehensive education (though I’m glad you implicitly agree that the system at present is about ‘opportunity’ and not some rubbish about ‘pace’ or ’aptitude’). Why select kids at all? While we have the two parallel systems described in ‘itstheprincipal�
�s letter there will never be just and equal opportunity or a real motivation towards it from those who run the system – and it’s so absurd to condemn 70% of children to a second rate education – the lucky 30% would be no worse off in a comprehensive system.

In reply to my comment:

Thank you for pinpointing the fundamental weakness in the case for rejective education – it is directed to benefitting less than one in three children, who, in your own words, ‘may be able to thrive in a grammar school environment’

You say:

So giving opportunities and environment approriate to individual needs is a weakness???

Since when has it been ‘appropriate’ to get the most talented kids in each year and segregate them for superior tuition which they ‘may’ benefit from while giving an inferior curriculum and expectations to the rest?

Like I keep saying, if Comprehensives do not cater for the needs to the students they have, then make changes there.

Like I keep saying ‘secondary modern schools are intended to provide an inferior education’ - comprehensives are fine – it’s the secondary moderns in the current ‘selective’ environment that I object to. If we had comprehensives the problem you describe would disappear overnight.

And, the Grammar school I went to was, and I presume still is, a different environment where not all pupils would have the ability to thrive because it would not suit their needs or pace of learning.

These opportunities are equally available to pupils in a comprehensive environment – a bright child’s brain doesn’t switch off because it is near a less bright child.

I think in terms of providing fair access to opportunities and the right environment, we agree,

Our assessments of the ‘right environment’ are certainly not the same at all - your arguments appear assume that the top 30% would ‘suffer’ or be ‘denied’ what is their natural due unless they are segregated and hot housed and I think this is rubbish.
We are a tiny minority in the world that segregates children like this - kids don’t need to be put into a special environment to succeed - that is why no county that has abolished grammar schools and the 11+ has ever brought them back.

… but I completely disagree with your premise that we should deny opportunity to those who get into a Grammar school just because they are in the minority.

Quite right too if I ever start supporting such ideas – grammar school children would not be ‘denied’ anything in a comprehensive system the way talented children are in secondary moderns now – grammar school children are given an advantage they do not need at the moment to the disadvantage of other children and could still realise their talents in a comprehensive system.
I oppose the present system not because I am some sort of frenzied egalitarian zealot but because it is a tremendous waste of talent that ‘denies opportunity’ in your words to a majority and gives unnecessary advantage to a minority and on the most irrational grounds – ‘selection’ for life of children barely old enough to cross the road.

Your arguments all seem based on the idea that, in spite of what commonsense would suggest and what we can see in the world around us, the 11+ is an extraordinarily accurate intellectual measuring device, which infallibly spots those who need a different sort of education to everybody else, and that it should be used for giving a better education to those already benefitted by nature with better than average talents.
Your arguments also all appear to assume that the top 30% would ‘suffer’ or be ‘denied’ what is their due if they are not segregated and hot housed while everyone else takes their chance in second-rate schools – your answer to this is that the second rate schools should be ‘improved’ although their role in the system is precisely to be inferior (not ‘differently paced/directed’ et cetera).
Your arguments also all appear not to notice that passing the 11+ is regarded by parents - no doubt less intellectually rigorous and impartial than yourself - as a part of the route to a good job when they leave school. (Which it is.)

I don’t think I’m going to make any more posts after this. I’ve said what I want to and what I think a majority of rational parents would think and some points I have made before.

Every one who thinks this Highcrest banding is a good idea should think about what happens to a local family who do not get a place after sitting the banding test. If you are in the William Ramsey or Holmer Green Catchment area, they will be able to apply and probably get into either of these schools depending on the distance from home to the school. if they live near Highcrest and are in the current Highcrest catchment area, they have a problem. Cressex is probably not going to have a place because their priority gives preference to those who live closest to the school. Applicants who live outside of the catchment area for William Ramsey and Holmer Green will have a problem. Both of these schools are oversubscribed. Local families who fail to get into Highcrest through the banding test will see other families from afar getting a place and they will have to travel to where to find a school? If Highcrest continue with this flawed admission test, they should take on the responsibility to find alternative schools for their banding test rejections.

About six months ago someone – it may have been Hercule Poirot – posted a web address on here which showed the number of parents who transported their children into Oxfordshire every morning to comprehensive schools – I never recorded the address and cannot find it now – if you know what it is then please post it on here or email it to: clydetheretiredpolic
ehorse@hotmail.co.uk
.

Thank you very much.

Catflap wrote:
The comments on who can provide the best education somewhat confuse me when Bucks County Council have themselves said and i quote ' an upper school can provide an adequate education for a grammar school qualified pupil'
If BCC don't see the need to send the clever ones to a grammar school then pupils, regardless of ability could go to their local upper school

'Catflap':

... i quote ' an upper school can provide an adequate education for a grammar school qualified pupil'

Where did you get that quote from?

Please post it on here or email it to: clydetheretiredpolic
ehorse@hotmail.co.uk

Bucks County Council school transport policy.

home to school transport. I have copied this directly from their website, but feel free to have a look.

The nearest suitable school for transport purposes means the nearest
school the pupil is eligible to attend with a place available during the
normal admission cycle. It is generally considered that an upper school is
able to provide an adequate education for a grammar qualified pupil.

Catflap wrote:
Bucks County Council school transport policy.

home to school transport. I have copied this directly from their website, but feel free to have a look.

The nearest suitable school for transport purposes means the nearest
school the pupil is eligible to attend with a place available during the
normal admission cycle. It is generally considered that an upper school is
able to provide an adequate education for a grammar qualified pupil.

Thank you - I'll put their website into Google - I had already tried putting your quote in there but got nothing.

It is also in the current admissions guide for parents on their website (link below). Another great quote on the 11+ is in their presentation for primary schools which says "The result is not a measure of a child’s intelligence or IQ"...

https://schoolsweb.b
uckscc.gov.uk/school
s/leadership_and_man
agement/admissions/i
ndex.asp

http://www.buckscc.g
ov.uk/bcc/schools/ad
missions/secondary_p
arents_guide.page?

HerculePoirot wrote:
It is also in the current admissions guide for parents on their website (link below). Another great quote on the 11+ is in their presentation for primary schools which says "The result is not a measure of a child’s intelligence or IQ"...

https://schoolsweb.b

uckscc.gov.uk/school

s/leadership_and_man

agement/admissions/i

ndex.asp

Merci bien Hercule and did you see my other one about cross-county boundary transportation of schoolchildren?

Ms Moynihan has certainly stirred up debate about the selective system in Wycombe. Well done, you are a national innovator.

faircuppa wrote:
Ms Moynihan has certainly stirred up debate about the selective system in Wycombe. Well done, you are a national innovator.

Hardly 'national' - it's a dead issue in most counties.

(No disrespect.)