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Wanderers Ways. Neil Thompson 1961-2021

Grammar Schools


birch-chorley

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Chicken and egg isn't it?

 

Well educated folk aren't generally feral cunts.

Nip in M&S this aft, it's full of them.

 

I'm just wary of this 'look what they're doing in X' approach.

 

It was Alberta (Canadian Province) and Singapore a few years back...

 

It's a Dougie Freedman/Neil Lennon approach imo, we have the perfect model here in the UK, in the private school system - in the case of the feral parents scenario, remove the kids, make them boarders, that's blue sky thinking that. :)

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Chicken and egg isn't it?

 

Well educated folk aren't generally feral cunts.

 

 

Imagine judging every animal by its ability to climb a tree... that's Judging educations systems using Pisa rankings...

 

Different countries...

Different levels of migration

Different cultures

Different educational spends

Different languages (Finish is all spelt phonetically meaning that the language is mastered much earlier)

Their college system is pretty much a grammar system...

Their curriculum doesn't venture much outside what is involved in Pisa testing (again.. teaching answers)..

 

The Finish system is a good system, but we would never be able to implement it. Little Tarquin messes about over here and its everyone's fault but Tarquins...if kids don't want to learn, they won't..

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Nip in M&S this aft, it's full of them.

 

I'm just wary of this 'look what they're doing in X' approach.

 

It was Alberta (Canadian Province) and Singapore a few years back...

 

It's a Dougie Freedman/Neil Lennon approach imo, we have the perfect model here in the UK, in the private school system - in the case of the feral parents scenario, remove the kids, make them boarders, that's blue sky thinking that. :)

 

I like your thinking.

 

Also stick the kids of the powers that be in the inner city shit comprehensives , they'd soon get their fingers out and get it sorted

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My lads school has pictures of Jesus plastered all over the walls.

 

As soon as my lads hair grows longer than his collar, I get a phone call telling me it needs cutting.

 

Pointing out that Nazis liked crew cuts and Jesus was happy hippy didn't go down well the fucking hypocrites

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If your highest qualification is a GCSE, you're not allowed to teach that at GCSE,

 

I teach Business Economics, Law, Travel, ICT and Personal Finance, all of which were studies as part of my degree. (Thankfully we dropped Travel and Law is off the cards this year).

 

They have had me in Biology last year assisting, no more.. as the knowledge simply isn't there. This is a normal comprehensive.

 

What they do, is if they are short they may send somebody on a SKE, which is like an access course, which focuses mainly on the maths content, however you need to be really top notch at maths to do this, your talking a grade C at least at A Level..

I know of academies where maths is taught by people with GCSE maths and you can get through an SKE without really enhancing your knowledge. KS3 maths is often taught by Geography/History/PE teachers who have no requirement to do a SKE

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I's a fair point Carlos about catchment areas which is illustrated by house prices.

 

But you show it's limitations of the catchment area is king view with your example. The folk you talk about from, I'm guessing Harwood, don't need to move to Bromley Cross to get in Turton. Every day I see busses going to Canon Slade on their way up St Peters way from Swinton & Worsley.

 

 

how do you think you get in there?

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on another point, religious mumbo jumbo

 

fcuking hell

 

do you lot actually think its wall to wall religion at a catholic school

 

the one i know actually has plenty non catholics

 

and even the 'catholics' dont get fcuking brainwashed

 

deary, deary me

 

its the 21st century and we've got people scared of religious mumbo jumbo

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For me it's because you have a direct correlation between parents who do well for themselves passing on knowledge to their children

 

Unfortunately the poorer the parents the less likely they are going to be cleverer / wiser and then hand this on to their children

 

My father was very bright, but when he left school in 1924 he had a broken finger injured in cricket. He therefore could not take up the clerical job he had been offered with Liverpool Victoria as neat writing in ledgers was the essential at that time. Nowadays we would just sit someone like that in front of a terminal, so no problem. He became a manual worker and was a foreman at 21.

My mother was also bright, but she left school in Jarrow in 1927. Her brother got the last job in Jarrow (cinema projectionist), but as a middle sister her first priority was to take over from her elder sister as her widowed father's housekeeper until the youngest left school. At 23 she moved away from home to work in a fish and chip emporium in Lancaster. Later when she attended domino or whist drives she would as often as not win a prize in the evening.

 

Warrington was a unique County Borough, in that its southern boundary was the Ship Canal. Outside the CB was the middle-class place to live ("the Cheshire side of town").

 

The problem was never the grammar schools - they gave genuine opportunity to those willing to grasp it. The problems was the standard of, and attitude within, the Secondary Moderns. The SM on the Cheshire side was markedly better than any within the CB. The boys' grammar school is now a poor CoE comp, and the girls' HS became a Sixth Form College. The comp to the south has better 'A' level results than the SFC for the old town districts.

I can think of several of my contemporaries, from council houses, who went on to gain PhDs and very good jobs. Nowadays the town sixth formers look for places at much weaker universities and think they are doing well.

 

I do know of one boy who went to a very poor RC SM. He was the brightest there (and I'm including the teachers) and got 6 grade A CSEs, as they then were. This enabled him to transfer to the grammar school (nobody did that from an SM within my time there). He dropped a year to do proper GCEs, then 'A' levels, followed by a first degree at Trent (then a Poly), Masters at Sheffield, and PhD at Birmingham. He is retired now, after 19 years as Vice-Chancellor of Middlesex Uni.

A neighbour suffered a scalding at 2 which set him back considerably, and gave him a severe stammer until adulthood. He went to the local SM and somehow went on to gain a PhD and is now a lecturer at Staffordshire (bit of a failure really, his brother is a professor in the USA).

So even then, with very negative attitudes in the SMs, it was possible (though extremely unlikely) to climb the ladder.

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God squad and additional points for extra curricular activities like sports teams etc.....I'd assume.

 

Just making the point that whilst catchment area is important its not the only factor.

I refer you to my original post: "I'm for it. As it stands you can buy a place by moving into a catchment area, or you can go to church every week, what a load of bollocks."

 

All my friends' kids go (or will go) to Canon Slade, I guess because they are in Withins catchment area, so they've opted to start going to chuch every week for 10 years+. It really is bollocks. If they sacked that off, there would only be coffin dodgers in the churchs.

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its the 21st century and we've got people scared of religious mumbo jumbo

Exactly, it's the 21st century and we are going backwards. And who said was wall to wall?

Do you know about the Trojan shit and the Jewish schools? Teach that shit outside the education system.

Edited by no balls
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on another point, religious mumbo jumbo

 

fcuking hell

 

do you lot actually think its wall to wall religion at a catholic school

 

the one i know actually has plenty non catholics

 

and even the 'catholics' dont get fcuking brainwashed

 

deary, deary me

 

its the 21st century and we've got people scared of religious mumbo jumbo

 

Seems to me that  in the 21st century 99% of issues in the west and middle east would be solved overnight if it were resigned to the dustbin.

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Friends of the missus were looking round the schools at the same time as us. Their lad isn't that bright and not very well behaved either really. He wanted to go to Southlands or Albany but his mum said she hadn't gone to church every week for the last 5 years for nothing. He ended up at St Michaels which is supposidly a better school. For that child though? Nah. He will be left in low sets learning fuck all. I think it was quite mean of them to look round the schools when the decision had already been made, tight bastards.

Edited by Winchester White
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I refer you to my original post: "I'm for it. As it stands you can buy a place by moving into a catchment area, or you can go to church every week, what a load of bollocks."

 

All my friends' kids go (or will go) to Canon Slade, I guess because they are in Withins catchment area, so they've opted to start going to chuch every week for 10 years+. It really is bollocks. If they sacked that off, there would only be coffin dodgers in the churchs.

 

Apols only saw the catchment post.

 

Suppose my view is that the same faces will get in regardless of whther they pay for the house on the hill or the direct debit to Kumon, but the testing element adds only an air of meritocracy to the process.

 

Those kids parents can pay for additional tuition will do and will be at significant advantage.

 

Those who can't pay for top ups are less likely, the small number of really able ones will likely still get over the bar.

 

Then the results will be used to turn around to those who missed out to say 'You had your chance in a fair process and didn't take it' and the further division of society into winners and losers has its justification to gather even more pace.

Edited by RoadRunnerFan
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If anything illuminates the difference between Conservative and Labour, it is this.

 

Conservatives want each child to maximise the opportunity from education, Labour want to everyone to be the same.

 

It is also very good for the country that the best kids are educated together.

 

The current system fails too many.

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If anything illuminates the difference between Conservative and Labour, it is this.

 

Conservatives want each child to maximise the opportunity from education, Labour want to everyone to be the same.

 

It is also very good for the country that the best kids are educated together.

 

The current system fails too many.

 

 

don't get me started on the words "Pupil Premium"...

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What I find interesting about the debate is that grammar schools benefiting middle-class kids is a 'bad thing' - why? Surely the main advantage of grammar schools is that it helps people of ALL backgrounds enjoy something approaching the opportunities/push that people get from attending top public schools....and we don't end up with the likes of Blair, Cameron, Osbourne, Clegg et al dominating the country. The narrative focusing on kids that get free school meals seems to imply that anyone else doesn't need any assistance.

 

Did enjoy Chukka Umunna get in a flap on the Daily Politics earlier in the week when a pro-grammar school chap brought up his public school background in reference to his opposition to grammars. Hope that smug cunt knocks on my door one day...think Labour should watch themselves with their OTT opposition to this - the current law is very silly to ban new grammar schools while there are still loads in existence, and they are popular where they still exist.

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I don't believe torys want to maximise every childs education. Conservatives couldn't care less about vast swathes of the population and their eduation. I think labour are so busy tryin not to offend at times they hold the country back as well. This could well be an example.

Edited by Ghana White
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I don't believe torys want to maximise every childs education. Conservatives couldn't care less about vast swathes of the population and their eduation. I think labour are so busy tryin not to offend at times they hold the country back as well. This could well be an example.

 

 

I hear what you say, but I think the agenda has been so dominated by the left over the last 50 years, we haven't had space for real Conservative policy. Let's hope we get a 10-15  year run at it and see if that makes a difference. It would also be a positive development if teachers were depoliticised.

Edited by boltondiver
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on another point, religious mumbo jumbo

 

fcuking hell

 

do you lot actually think its wall to wall religion at a catholic school

 

the one i know actually has plenty non catholics

 

and even the 'catholics' dont get fcuking brainwashed

 

deary, deary me

 

its the 21st century and we've got people scared of religious mumbo jumbo

This
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on another point, religious mumbo jumbo

 

fcuking hell

 

do you lot actually think its wall to wall religion at a catholic school

 

the one i know actually has plenty non catholics

 

and even the 'catholics' dont get fcuking brainwashed

 

deary, deary me

 

its the 21st century and we've got people scared of religious mumbo jumbo

I do see your point but you are also missing the main point. Education in the 21st century should not be determined by what mythical God you do (or 90% of the time don't) believe in. Kids in this country deserve the best available to them regardless of colour, creed, religion or money but the last one will always win out. I just don't think we should be adding religion to that diversity also. It is outdated and against equality for those that deserve it.

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I do see your point but you are also missing the main point.

 

i take your point but your missing another point :)

 

catholic schools dont only accept catholics

 

the one im familiar with doesnt even require church attendance, unlike the CofE one

Edited by Casino
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