Managing failure in the classroom - the ghost of the 50s and 60 returns...

Michael Rosen's open letter to Nicky Morgan about the dangers of the return of creeping selection are a timely reminder of the waste engendered by the grammar school system. Talk about helping the brightest tends to be a diversionary tactic. Selection now, with its emphasis on critical reasoning test results, means that children from poorer backgrounds won't even get to sit the 11-plus in the first place because parents can't afford the tutoring fees. I live in an area with two selected grammars - and a well established system of private tutoring that takes kids as young as 7! I also grew up in Leeds as the 11-plus was ending. Mine was the first year that didn't have so to sit the exam, so my parents never got to find out if - in the not-so-infallible view of my primary school teachers, I was/wasn't 'university material', aged only 11. Primary teaching in those days - as Rosen so well illustrates - was about managing failure for around two thirds of pupils. Now, in selective grammar areas, its about letting parents battle it out to get their children the supposedly best tutors so they can pass the 11-plus. A grammar school place has little to do with helping the clever working class, more ensuring the sharp elbows of the middle class get what many of them view as their just reward.

A voluntary invitation, but it'll cost you...

Youngest son has had a very good year at school. Or rather, he's been so good at school that he's been invited to spend the day trampolining. In fact, quite a lot of his year have been good enough to qualify for the bouncing extravaganza. It turns out that all but the most serial of recidivists (ie those who have accrued more than three after school detentions) have been invited to momentarily defy gravity. Parents and carers have also received an invitation - but in our case, it's to make a 'voluntary' contribution to the cost of the revels. You see, while the school isn't making a formal charge, the event simply can't go ahead if enough of us - preferably all of us really - don't cough up a voluntary tenner; but who could refuse - when our offspring have been so good? The letter home also mentions that we should also give them some money for food if we're not sending sandwiches, along with a small additional sum to allow for the purchase of friperies or mementoes of the day. Of course, even the most curmudgeonly parent would be hard pressed to begrudge the invitation to make the 'voluntary' payment, even though, on close reading of the letter, that word has been given the clear imputation that it actually means completely the opposite to that found in everyday usage: no money, no bouncing. Can't help but wonder what's planned for those left behind in the naughty corner: oakum picking or mail bag stitching, perhaps? Not that I'm advocating a return to Victorian punishment in our schools; that can safely be left to Nicky Morgan, our perpetually surprised Secretary of State for Education - although she could possibly consider an encyclical to all heads pointing out the real meaning of 'voluntary' and 'compulsory' in communications to parents and carers, if she can tear herself away from making a complete dogs breakfast of the exam system, that is.

11-plus coaching - the middle class obsession

Good to see the Sutton Trust criticising the middle class 11-plus coaching 'industry'. Here in Calderdale, West Yorkshire, our 2 selective grammars run a neat line in paid for pre-test exams (for the borderline) and full selective 11-plus tests that help to keep private tutors gainfully employed. Anecdotal evidence shows that hopeful parents regularly start paying for tutoring at the start of Year 4. But the tutoring really moves up a gear when the pre-test and final exams draw near. The tests themselves also bear a striking similarity year-on-year, thereby helping to perpetuate the middle class domination of grammar school places that the Sutton Trust report also criticises. Coaching itself can prove problematic for those who pass the exam and are then awarded their coveted place at grammar school. A maths teacher at one of the schools revealed that his colleagues can identify those new Year 7 pupils that have been tutored in his subject within days of the start of the new school year - and also predict which of those will then need additional support to enable them to access the curriculum. Middle class push and paid-for coaching does not ensure a pain-free transition to the type of grammar school education that Mr Gove so idolises and the pushythat the middle class so crave.