I don't like categorizing children as “bright” versus I presume, “dull”. All children should be encouraged to perform to their potential and we have a moral obligation to provide a supportive learning environment for them all.

I do agree that children are extremely capable of performing far beyond the expectations of current curricula. But unless there is long term planning and implementation you're going to get this jerky and rather tepid approach to educational change. The problem of policy- making in the public service sector is that long term goals and objectives don't mesh with short-term political power.

"bright" vs "less bright" then? Or are you suggesting that some children are not innately more academically able than some others, regardless of external influences? Semantics aside, I don't think we disagree - giving all children the encouragement and the environment "to perform to their potential" seems to be a worthy moral obligation.

As to the conflict between long-term goals and election-cycle timelines - that's pretty much a universal challenge. At least in education policy it's a five-year cycle between elections, rather than the 90-day cycle between reporting periods that stifles radical innovation in public companies! Education policy really shouldn't be a political football, but until everyone reads the same journals and comes to a consensus about how the world should work, it's an unavoidable reality

I agree, children differ in their aptitude and interest for particular subjects and sometimes within subjects so a one size fits all approach is not beneficial. For example some children have an aptitude for mathematics but not with humanities, some have an aptitude for fine arts but not with sports etc etc. The point is, if your goal is higher academic achievement, it is much more effective to offer different levels of instruction within a main campus where we can fit them into a suitable course rather than have separate institutions that offer narrow curricula choices. Of course if the goal is something else, maybe of along the lines of “separate but equal” then it’s a different matter all together.

Hmmm.. Let me introduce an elepant that quite often appears in the room, that of human nature.

I think we all accept that bright children should be encouraged to perform to their potential. I think that it's always been the case that there are some kids who, for whatever reason, will act to discriminate and persecute any who they feel are different and can achieve academically where they can't. Even when I was at primary school, the poor 'swot' was not someone to be admired.

I think that an argument can be made that physical separation of the bright from those who would seek to pick on them both physically and psychologically is a requirement where the objective is to maximise attainment.

This policy initiative has little to nothing to do with sound pedagogical practice and far more to do with property prices. My guess is that a proposal to create new separate “grammar” schools is an appeal to potential Conservative voters that can’t afford to purchase property within “desirable” and most probably ethnically homogenous catchment areas.

agree, as experienced myself as well as with our own children

My wife experienced the same issues with her siblings as an example measured against.

I passed the 11+ in the mid 50's, yet never went to 'Grammar School' for the reason Dad did not want it, because my siblings never went & they did OK, so why you. Likely the bloody blue collar working class council estate mentality

Not that it mattered any, what was I to know till many years later, I went to sceondary school (in fact dropped out/pulled out early), without 'O's or A's, simply ended up on the snakes & laddar academic path, the long & winding road, the hard way, night school for basics, day release, evening classes for HE, block study HE & DL - ended up with the necessary HE qualifications that mattered, it just took longer than the conventional route.

Stopped doing all of it going for further qualifications & CPD as I approached 60. A lifetime of academic study 'for what'. Who cares if you have HE qualifications, a degree or graduate studies, its the ability & money that makes the world go round - no one to prove anything to only yourself

Maybe the child or drive within me that wanted something, to achieve something, that I thought was held from me by my own Dad... who knows

Humans will always find or each their level of incompetence - not to be confused with ability

Just maybe you cannot make a dull child smart, yet possibly make a smart child dull... who knows


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I'm not sure why people think intelligence and book smarts can be "nurtured" any more than swimming speed or violin virtuosity.

I realize that many in the education industry owe their jobs to the misinformed belief that one can turn slow kids into Einstein.

When it comes down to it, it's mostly in the genes.

Not so much political as belief in a two tier system. Theresa, after all, is a grammar school girl. In fact the even more worrying aspect of the proposal is an increase in selection power for faith schools. (Heaven help us, she's a vicar's daughter too.)

There are exceptions but I do wonder if kids in the main just reach the levels they learn at.

My early years were spent in Somerset. Two older brothers went to the Secondary school. Part way into the last year at Primary my dad got a new job that meant moving to Bristol.

I continued travelling to the old school until xmas and then transferred to the new Primary.

Based on my school reports and the various tests so far, indications were that I'd have been off to Grammar after taking the 11+.

I'll never forget moving to the new school. It was like going back in time.

I went from a nice modern school with electric bells and where we wrote with biros (fountain or cartridge if you wanted) to one with a handheld bell a teacher rang on the doorstep and where we wrote with 'scratch' pens - like pencils but with a nib on the end that went into the inkwell. And, naturally, caused inkblots when you wrote.

Every question to a teacher had to be asked "please sir/miss (question) sir/miss."

At the old school we all knew 12d=shilling, 240d=£ and that a third of a £ was 6/- and 8d, 22yards in a chain etc but little of this was known at the new school.

On the other hand they did French.

When I went to Comprehensive school, there were the O level kids, the CSEs (big majority) and what was then perceived to be the dummies class.

The kids in the O level classes had been no brighter than me at the Primary school. Perhaps only having done French for a few months instead of 4 years made me look less capable when the decision was made, I don't know.

But those O level kids came out of school with their O levels and I came out with CSE passes, 5 of which were at a level generally considered on a par with O levels by those in the education system but not, unfortunately, by employers.

They may as well have handed out the certificates in the first year.

Ah, The Peter Principle. Another great Canadian innovation! Laurence Peter was from Vancouver, although he'd moved to California by the time he published his famous book...

A proper common education system could identify the brightest through its normal assessment, and offer those individuals the opportunity to attend an academic/grammar school. However, to avoid educational apartheid by another means, the number of academic schools would have to be relatively few.

I take your "why bother" point, but as dave-j notes, there are some bright kids that are socially dissuaded from applying themselves in the wrong environment. There is also something to be said for cultivating a competitive academic culture in a separate place.


Something in that.

True intelligence, whatever that means, may well be genetically determined, but that's largely overridden in our education systems. There are so many other factors.

In fact, the issue that has brought this about in the UK is that some bright children from less affluent homes, are being denied the opportunity to attend the remaining 164 grammars, because the middle classes are investing heavily in primary education (prep / pre-prep) and private tutoring to meet selection. Admittedly, the brightest will achieve anyway, and the truly thick will not achieve sufficiently, but there does seem to be a displacement of worthy kids by wealthy kids.

The likely reason some employers chose kids with O's & A's is that they were far better educated than anyone with GCSE, so they thought at the time & likley the manager or personnel officer had O's or A's in their CV.

Out of school, ready & willing, needing a job, take a child with O's or A's whose family were all blue collar workers against one with all C's in GCSE whose family member worked for local government or a multi national corporation

Guess who got the job , then those with the O's or A's from the blue collar council estate finds work in trades, some office (if lucky) maybe labouring, or in retail... its a fact 'who you know, not what you know'.

Dummies have a 'real place' in society - its the mixed bag that is important (not wehther someone went to Grammar school), after all - not everyone is streamed or career driven to be a Medical practioner, Accountant, legal beagle, Uni-Prof, engineer, scientist, school teacher or politician


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The problem with university is that its so expensive now, it'll be even worse in 20 twenty years time. So I'm going to take a very relaxed approach to education with my kids. I'll let them take days off, goof around when they actually attend, won't make them do homework, let them watch the telly, keep praising them even though they've done bugger all, just really be a wretchedly irresponsible parent, that way there will be no way they'll be able to get into a university and I'll be off the hook for paying for the bloody parasites.

Now that might work

Instead, show them how to make a living from fishing, or how to milk the system

In other words, cultural capital.