i'm excited, you're starting to get it...!!rockfreak wrote: ↑Mon Jul 01, 2019 8:33 pm In reply to JR's post about grammars and academic attainment, it seems to me that Germany does it rather better. My information on this is based on a friend in Germany, some exchanges with Michael Scuffil and what I've been able to discern in research. Any one else with other info is welcome to put me right. German secondary education is called the Gymnasium system. This is nothing to do with pommel horses or parallel bars, but refers to the different educational streamings. The campus is all one but pupils are divided into a Grammar layer (Specialist, bright, and headed for a good uni), a more general intelligence layer, and a technical/vocational layer. These different specialisms go into separate buildings but on the same campus and this seems to me the important thing, because they then mingle out of class for sports, drama, hobbies, etc. As such I imagine there must be more of an inclusive feel: academics may not be sporting and vice versa, the technical people may be producing nice objets d'art, and so it becomes apparent early on in life that everyone brings something to the table. A bit like CH now I come to think of it. This is a powerful eroder of class consciousness and income inequality. Now I believe that not all states in Germany do it exactly this way because states have autonomy but this seems to me to be a typical set-up and I believe it is replicated in parts of Scandinavia. There also seems to be a bit more help with job finding after school.
It at least avoids the feeling of other, posher schools on the far side of town, and another facet is the relaxed attitude to clothing: they don't seem to have our hangup about uniforms. I don't know whether that's good or bad but it's interesting how much less of a class divide there seems to be among some of our European neighbours.
There is actually a difference between private education and paid education., and a comprehensive and a selective system - based on different abilities and mindsets.
i n a previous post i mentioned that other European countries had multi-partite systems. The term private doesnt really refer to the fees, rather to the independent nature of the schools and their curriculum. In this country unless a school signs up to the National Curriculum they can't get State funding. Its all rather ideologically based.
The Dutch have state funded private schools. So do the French. Italy has a multi partite system. And best of all tbe Germans (I really love Germans) who have different types of secondary schools each catering to differents abilities skills and mindsets.
The problem with a one size fits all comprehensive system is that it doesnt take into account the fact that their quality is partly based on where they are located and the backgrounds of the pupils. The more affluent the area, and the average pupil in those schools, the better the schools will perform, generally. Labour politicians revelling in tbe social prestige of sending their children to State schools in leafy, well heeled London areas like Hampstead make me laugh, especially when they live in £10m townhouses etc. This in itself is a type of selection by wealth. To the point that i remember reading an article by the columnist Giles Coren bemoaning the fact that he could not get his child into his local State school in Hampstead because of the trend of rich parents buying a flat in the area specifically to get their children in.
With regards to the top private/public schools, i think the fact that the pupils tend to be from very similar backgrounds is a problem, but that is mainly down to funding. i thought you were overly cynical in a previous post scoffing at the calls from the Head of the Private School Association (or whatever theyre called) for more bursaries and assisted places, since i dont think a private school really cares about the background of the pupil, so long as theyre bright enough and the fees are covered. The problem is where the money for bursaries comes from. The beauty of CH is that apart from the historical quirk of the City Of London grant, there's also the OB contribution thing. Could Old Etonians and Harrovians be persuaded to do anything similar...? : /
For all the criticism levelled at Grammar schools and tbe way the were implemented from the 40s to tbe 60s, the fact is that in their own small, and in some senses, substantial way - they worked!
There just werent enough if them. There was no flexibility if a child failed their 11+ etc. But they were great levellers, and allowed children from modest backgrounds to punch above their proverbial weight. Even in France atm, Macron is aiming to launch 25 State boarding schools to take in children from immigrant backgrounds from the banlieues, and rural areas of France.
On a sidenote, uniforms are important. In effect they are levellers meaning children wont be judged by their peers if they wear a rubbish pair of trainers etc.