News about selection

Comprehensive Future meeting What now for the comprehensive vision? November 23rd 6pm, Committee Room 6 House of Commons, Westminster. Speakers Vic Goddard – Headteacher Passmores Academy, Harlow; Angela Rayner – Labour Shadow Secretary of State for Education; John Pugh – Lib Dem spokesperson on education and Alec Shelbrooke – Tory MP for Elmet and Rothwell . All welcome –please allow time to go through security. To be followed at 7.15 by the Comprehensive Future AGM
The opposition to selection grows and grows – from John O’Farrell, David Willetts and Michael Morpurgo. Fiona Millar devastates the case for ‘tutor proof tests’ and the Institute for Fiscal Studies provides more evidence that selection is not the way to get a 21^st century education system.
More and more articles on why selection is a bad idea have appeared in recent days, from Fiona Millar in the Guardian, Michael Wilshaw in the TES and Jeremy Warner in the Telegraph. Theresa May should be taking notice!
The current debate about grammars is resulting in useful data illustrating how selection does not help social mobility for example from Education Datalab, Full Fact and School Dash.
Fiona Millar makes the case for stopping schools managing their own admissions.
Concern is growing that if Justine Greening is ‘open minded’ about more grammars ways will be found to introduce more grammars as free schools. The Conservative campaign to bring in more grammars is relaunching. But the case against will be set out again and again. If Theresa May is serious about closing the gap, she should end selection not increase it.
Government adviser and one of the architects of Progress 8 has said that despite corrections the final version will still give grammars a ‘head start’. Tim Leunig was speaking at a recent meeting of secondary moderns reported in the TES on 13th May.
HMCI , Sir Michael Wilshaw, speaks up for comprehensive education
The Chief Adjudicators latest Annual Report expresses many concerns about school admissions. More evidence in support of our campaign for a wide ranging review of school admissions.
Joanne Bartley a speaker at our conference writes in Schools Week
A full report of our conference on the website. Parents explain the damage selection causes. Experts explain how admissions could be fairer. Upholding the comprehensive principle – the need to take action now.
Steering group member Alan Gurbutt writes to the press about the situation in selective Lincolnshire where he lives.
Recent articles by Melissa Benn and Kate Pickett encourage Jeremy Corbyn to have a clear policy on ending selection now.
Today 16th January 2015 is a big admissions day as the Annual Report of the Chief Adjudicator is out. The BBC and the TES comment. Meanwhile the Social Market Foundation call for popular schools to take a quota of poorer children. We think the report backs up our call for a wide ranging review of school admissions.
In a Westminster debate this week Tory MPs speak up for grammars and Labour says its policy is still that parents should decide.
Gifted Phoenix an education blogger has written a long blog about grammars and grammars and disadvantage
Go to the SEA website to hear the excellent speech from Dr Selina Todd about the myth of grammar schools and the opportunity they offered to the working class. Meanwhile David Lammy MP and Boris Johnson want to see selection at 11 continue!
In an article in the Guardian today (7.10.2014) Fiona Millar lifts the lid on secondary school admissions.
Bucks campaigners have shown that tutor proof tests do not help poor children. Better surely to end selection tests, go comprehensive and spend the money saved on schools and all pupils?
Speakers at our fringe meeting at the Labour Party conference on September 21^st include Owen Jones and Fiona Millar
Our report on the survey done on admissions criteria of English secondary schools has encouraged debate particularly on banding in the TES, BBC website and the Local Schools Network, although the report has also much more to say about other aspects of admissions and supports our call for a review of admissions. The Conversation in March had a useful post on banding by Professor John Coldron.
Research from the Institute of Education, Bath University and Bristol University has provided more evidence to refute the idea that we need more selection at eleven, which currently only UKIP supports. An article by Professor David Jesson welcomes the evidence. Adrian Elliott on the LSN website tackles the UKIP policy of a grammar school in every town. A post from the Institute of Education gives more background to the research.
The DfE has published guidance for free schools on admissions including a model policy
A report on school admissions by the Children’s Commissioner calls for the DfE to carry out research. Summary on the website.
This week (March 3) parents are getting to know if their preferences for their child’s secondary school are being met. The Telegraph and Guardian some of the media focusing on admissions. The Sutton Trust has published research on the admissions criteria used by schools for the 2012 intake. Comprehensive Future has a summary.
Our new briefing on fair admissions from Peter Mortimore expands on his recent comment article in the Guardian
DfE guidance on satellite schools will only be approved if it is a genuine continuance of the same school.
Demos has compared gaps in attainment for advantaged and disadvantaged pupils in local authorities. It shows some of the widest gaps are in selective areas.
John Major’s speech triggered the usual calls to ‘bring back’ grammars (do they not know about the many areas in England where selection at 11 still has a major effect?). But there have been some powerful arguments against, from John Harris, the Local Schools Networkin two articles and Full Fact.
Sutton Trust research shows the extent of coaching and the high proportion of prep school pupils admitted to grammar schools compared to the locality. Trust calls for changes in testing but not an end to selection at 11!
Andy Burnham MP has said that the biggest policy mistake the last Labour government made was its failure to champion comprehensive education
Welsh Assembly Member Angela Burns wants to see grammars brought back in Wales but is not clear how
A survey by the Institute of Education of some grammar schools has shown the overwhelming majority of pupils were tutored to pass the entry test
A report from Ofsted claiming that non selective schools are not doing well by able pupils has been challenged by Peter Wilby in the Guardian
Daily Mail reports expansion of grammar schools
Sutton Trust reports increasing segregation in secondary education and proposes random allocation as part of the solution
A grammar school in Kent which is expanding its intake may also set its own test rather than the Kent 11 plus
Consultation on a proposal to establish an “annexe” in Sevenoaks of a grammar school in Maidstone over 10 miles away