I am not in favour of more faith schools. I don’t believe in indoctrinating youngsters with myths and superstitution within the educational environment. Not all faith schools are as relatively harmless as the C of E.

I really hate the idea that my daughter can be rejected from her nearest state-funded school because I do not go to church. As I am an atheist there is no piece of paper that will get my daughter preferential treatment anywhere. This is unfair.

Oh joy…

Yet more evidence that the more specific policies they unveil, the more “handbag-and-twinset” Dave becomes…

Ho hum.

“I am not in favour of more faith schools.”

What if they were all C of E?

we’ve been here before on LC.

Last time, an anti-faith school kick-off was followed by various folks posting that they were quite happy with their CoE / Catholic school backgrounds; and a little discussion as to why it was that such schools were generally better than average.

Followed by deafening silence, when I asked what folks felt about Islamic primary schools, and quoted what the schools themselves said about banning music and banning the drawing of animals or people.

Perhaps the debate would be better served to stop using the blanket ‘faith school’ heading: and consider the different faiths individually.

As it would be equally silly to discuss ‘political schools’ rather than compare and contrast fascist schools to liberal schools to labour ones and tory ones.

Might I ask what you think of the evangelical schools run by Peter Vardy at taxpayers’ expense, 5?

I fear the prospect of Islamic schools. But I also am not enamoured with the thought of my taxes going to evangelical or fundamentalist Hindu or Sikh schools.

I know you enjoy slagging off Islam but that’s not all there is to it.

Did you know?

I went to a Catholic school. We had 1 sex education class in year 7, which consisted of biological anatomy and where things get shoved.

In year 10, our RE teacher told us that people who use condoms go to hell (when asked about Africans and Aids, she replied that God gave us free will). Another teacher claimed that “the Aids virus is small enough to fit through the holes in a condom”, and I promise you he was being serious.

In the year below me, I think 4 or 5 girls got pregnant. Two of them to the same boy. (Who ended up in a young offenders institute).

Apparently, it’s our society that’s broken. And apparently, more religion will fix it.

Now I know the plural of anecdote is neither data nor evidence…but on this case I find my personal observations to be rather instructive.

As I am an atheist there is no piece of paper that will get my daughter preferential treatment anywhere. This is unfair.

Maybe not, but if you gather lots of them together you can get the best education in the world.

God split infinitives are ugly.

OK, who’s up for helping me set up the the J. R. “Bob” Dobbs School for Gifted Layabouts?

How about more faith schools to commemorate any selection of the following?

The Oxford Martyrs tried for heresy in 1555 and subsequently burnt at the stake for their religious beliefs and teachings. The three martyrs were the bishops Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley, and the Archbishop Thomas Cranmer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxford_Martyrs

The 280 Protestants burned at the stake for heresy during (Bloody) Mary Tudor’s reign?

The Bartholomew Day’s Massacre on 24 August 1572, especially since thousands of Huguenot asylum seekers sought refuge and settlement in England?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huguenot

The defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588?

The martyring (by hanging, drawing and quartering) of Guy Fawkes for his unsuccessful attempt to blow up Parliament in 1605?

The Glorious Revolution of 1688?

The Battle of the Boyne in 1690?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Boyne

I’d have thought that this could rebound on Cameron. Perhaps we should be concentrating in how we can make it rebound?

“Maybe not, but if you gather lots of them together you can get the best education in the world.”

Provided you can get them sufficiently close together to make a school geographically viable.

On the other hand why should the children of believers be subjected to faith based education? One of the flaws advocates of vouchers have yet to address.

I went a Catholic school but Catholicism had no input into the curriculum appart from RE so there was no problem with the lessons as such (assemblies were a different matter of course: being an atheist at least as far back as I remember I found them ridiculous and tedious in equal measure and they merely reinforced my disbelief).

Science lessons were based on science, not superstition: back then we had a Pope who may have been socially conservative but who unambiguously accepted Darwinism.

@Tim J

God split infinitives are ugly.

You see ugliness where there is none.

I was not meaning to say ‘there is no piece of paper anywhere’. The ‘anywhere’ referred to the sum of local schools, such that ‘preferential treatment anywhere’ is the correct form.

I’ll admit it’s a bit of a clunky sentence, but it is grammatically correct.

Now, young man, do you have anything intelligent to say about the subject in hand or will that be all?

Good to know about the acceptability of Darwin’s theory of evolution and the exoneration of Galileo in 1992 but what are the latest lines on Intelligent Design after the recent Haiti earthquake and the tsunami in 2004, not to mention the San Fransisco earthquake in 1906, the Lisbon earthquake in 1755 and all those virulent pandemics which have killed millions?

12 – I’m afraid that the ‘pieces of paper’ I was referring to are the sort that are guaranteed by the chief cashier to the Bank of England.

On the other hand why should the children of believers be subjected to faith based education? One of the flaws advocates of vouchers have yet to address.

Because the quality of the education that children receive depends heavily on the attitudes of their parents? No-one is forcing parents to send their children to faith schools, so the only way to prevent the children being so ‘forced’ is to remove the choice of which school children go to from the parents altogether.

14 – eh? The split infinitive resides within the headline to this piece.There being no infinitives in your post militates against their being split.

@Tim J

Apologies.

All faith-schools are based on exclusion due to difference and should be opposed by anyone fair-minded. This includes Catholic, C of E, Muslim, Jewish, Sikh, Hindu, Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, et al ad nauseum.

Where I live it’s pretty much an unspoken law that white folk send their kids to the local Catholic schools, as in 99.9% of intake, despite the local population being around 70/30 white/Asian. So two communities grow up side by side knowing little or nothing of the Other.

Religious-based schools are discriminatory and only serve to create divisions, or entrench existing prejudice. A ban on them would have sorted out Northern Ireland in a generation.

As far as I know, no politician has the bollocks to tell the truth as they are all pandering to the supersticious vote.

Maybe we should set up rationalist/atheist schools for people who don’t want to brain-wash their children.

“I went to a Catholic school.”

So did I and strangely absolutely no one got pregnant.

Mind you, it was an all boys school…..

“No-one is forcing parents to send their children to faith schools”

What if the nearest or best local school is a faith school?

Why do such diverse countries as the US and France insist on state funded schools being secular?

When as a lad at school I went on an exchange visit to a Lycee in France c. 1953, I recall being amazed to learn that there was no assembly for an act of worship to start the school day and no RE lessons at all. Parents who wanted RE for their children had to come to some extra-curricular arrangements with local churches for classes held outside school hours.

Until Forster’s Education Act of 1870 intervened to ensure all children had access to basic primary education, schooling had been left to voluntary action by the churches and to charities, which were almost invariably committed by their founders to a relious ethos and to instilling religious values.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elementary_Education_Act_1870

What motivated (belated) state intervention in Britain was that standards of literacy and numeracy were found to be lagging behind other west European countries just when basic literacy skills were becoming increasingly essential because of industrialisation and with the growing application of science and technology to manufacturing products and processes.

“We have noted a substantial body of original research . . . which found that stagnant or declining literacy underlay the ‘revolution’ of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. . . Britain in 1850 was the wealthiest country in the world but only in the second rank as regards literacy levels. [Nick] Crafts has shown that in 1870 when Britain was world economic leader, its school enrolment ratio was only 0.168 compared with the European norm of 0.514 and ‘Britain persistently had a relatively low rate of accumulation of human capital’.”
Sanderson: Education, economic change and society in 1780-1870 (Cambridge UP, 1995) p.61

For all the Conservative Party’s claimed reverence for Britain’s history, they are amazingly ignorant about it.

@ 1 “I don’t believe in indoctrinating youngsters with myths and superstitution within the educational environment”

Nor do I, and yet my 8 year old is already being taught, at a state school, about “global warming”, “healthy eating”, recycling, anti-smoking, anti-alcohol, soon it will be equality and diversity and blatant misandry. It’s like living with a green peace activist.

Theres no such thing as a value free education, secular education just peddles a different set of myths.

For all the Conservative Party’s claimed reverence for Britain’s history, they are amazingly ignorant about it.

Specifically what is this referring to? Your links talk about the creation of state-funded education – what does this have to with current Tory proposals regarding the delivery of state-funded education?

‘Good to know about the acceptability of Darwin’s theory of evolution and the exoneration of Galileo in 1992 but what are the latest lines on Intelligent Design’

The current Pope has wobbled on that question.

I don’t think my education was much different than of my local CoE school: a few Christian ceremonies at Christmas or Easter, a few hymns at assembly but broadly secular lessons.

ID might be a problem in the US but Christians here don’t generally hold much faith in it. It’s more likely to afflict non-Christian faith schools.

“Your links talk about the creation of state-funded education – what does this have to with current Tory proposals regarding the delivery of state-funded education?”

Try this recent decision by our Supreme Court for worrying implications about extending the numbers of faith schools:

“One of Britain’s most successful faith schools lost its appeal today [16 december 2009] to overturn a ruling that it had racially discriminated against a 12-year-old boy.

“In a landmark legal decision, judges at the supreme court found the Jewish Free School, a comprehensive in north-west London, had broken the law by refusing to admit the boy, known as M. . .”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2009/dec/16/jewish-school-loses-appeal

Presumably, a Conservative government will be overturning that Supreme Court ruling by legislation.

Presumably, a Conservative government will be overturning that Supreme Court ruling by legislation.

Conceivably. It does seem a touch odd that the question of who qualifies as Jewish is taken by judges. But how does that make Conservatives ignorant of British history? It just looks like a bit of a non-sequitor.

I’m currently a student at a non-faith Church of England school (I can’t keep up with how the classifications on the bloody thing work, but it’s a free, selective, semi-autonomous school with reasonable ties to the Church including a full-time Church of England chaplain, weekly sermons and yearly services at Southwark Cathedral). Can’t say I’ve been happy with my education, but the religious element’s never been a bother (the newest Chaplain is a bit over-the-top with his preaching but that’s only ten minutes a week and he’s actively alienating former Christians, so…).

The problem as I can see with faith schools and their expansion is quite simple. Why is a faith school preferable in any way to a non-faith school? While I’ll agree that it’s not necessarily true that the presence of religion will impede the standards of the school or the education of students (it’s possible, but if anything that’s due to bloody ignorant staff above all else), there just doesn’t seem to be an advantage to them in any way.

The only argument that comes to mind right now (and you’ll have to forgive me for being so bloody ignorant that this is all I can think of) is that it’s about accomodating other beliefs and providing for sub-communities in areas. I don’t quite see how that stands up, though; surely as a society we should be working to bring people together and to break down barriers rather than reinforce them? One of the great things about the education system is that it’s personal contact. It brings a sense of community, and more importantly, it humanises people of different creeds and colours (although with the private schools and selective schools, not perfectly admittedly) and helps generally to break down prejudices and makes people focus on what unites them rather than what divides them.

I’m being sentimental and more than a tad utopian even by saying that, I’ll admit. But my point stands – I don’t see how we’re going to protect communities by walling them off from their neighbours. As for the matter of accomodating for beliefs, I personally don’t feel that there’s a need for a necessarily religious character to school education and that education assisted by the state should not be of such a character in the name of equality and fraternity, but I’m sure there’d be dispute on that.

Hang on a minute… Is it just me, or is there a significant overlap between those who support the expansion of “faith schools”, and those who oppose “multiculturalism”?

20
‘Why do such diverse countries as the US and France insist on state-funded schools being secular?’
The secularization of education in France coincided with the ‘Civil Constitution of the Clergy’ in 1790, this was probably not unconnected with the fact that the Catholic church was against the revolution.
Freedom of religion in the US is enabled by the separation of church and state, I know less about American history, but I would guess this perfectly reflects liberalism, ie, if you wish to pursue a religion, no-one will stop you, (negative freedom)

Is it just me, or is there a significant overlap between those who support the expansion of “faith schools”, and those who oppose “multiculturalism”?

excellent point

A couple of minor points.

It is worth noticing that state funding of schools in Britain is dependent on teaching being as perscribed by the Government, so things like intelligent design (still opposed by the majority of US Christians, never mind British ones) are not really an issue. And as I have worked at a Catholic primary School, 98% of which’s pupils were ethnic Pakistani or Bangladeshi, I have my doubts as to whether such schools are always devisive.

More to the point, I think the turn towards other providers of education may reflect the frankly inadequate provision by community schools (or whatever they are called at the moment), which are consistently the worst providers in any comparison. I think the point here is less empowering faith groups or splitting communities, and more to do with promoting providers of education who do the best job for children. After all, if there is a good state school down the road, most parents won’t be interested in the religious school.

And there is a matter of numbers – if more religious schools open, it becomes easier to get into them as the number of practising religious actually falls (well stays the same and loses some of those who feel they have to pretend to get their children into a good school).

Basically, I agree faith schools (not the only possible new providers incidentally) are not ideal. But has any of their oponents here suggested how else we can improve education, rather than just resorting to blind criticism of an idea?

If we had reform schools and schools for children with special needs, setting per subject, stricter discipline and competitive sports, then most comprehensives would greatly improve. Faith schools can expel troublemakers far more easily The disruption in classes and bullying of those who want to study, undermine many comprehensives. Parents send their children to faith schools because they want to avoid bad schools where disruptive and violent pupils undermine education. If we had reform schools; special teachers, social workers and psychologists could be recruited to help with violent and disruptive pupils.

If 25% of a period is spent by the teacher getting the class to settle down and study, then that is 25% less teaching time. If a child has spent 11 years at school and on average 25% of a period is spent on on dealing with disruption, that is 8.25 yrs of education. A child who has attended schools with high levels of disruption may only have the education of a 14 year old compared to someone who has the education of a 16 yrs old who has attended a school without a problem with disruption. If someone enters 6th form with straight As or A stars, they will have an advantage when it comes to A levels compared to those who may only have Bs. Consequently violent and disruptive pupils are still have an adverse impact on the studious, even after they have left the school. Many top students at public and grammar school take GSCEs a year early, especially Maths. This is more difficult for a school to arrange if the have the added problems of dealing with disruptive pupils.

Faith schools attracts aspirational parents and probably very few disfunctional parents. No pupil or parent has the right to ruin someone else’s education.

28.

“Hang on a minute… Is it just me, or is there a significant overlap between those who support the expansion of “faith schools”, and those who oppose “multiculturalism”?”

What does multiculturalism mean in this context? If it means what it is often taken to mean, multiple cultures in one country, then faith schooling will support this. If it means a culture with multiple inputs (i.e. every culture not firmly rooted in a particular text or belief system) then this is what state schools ideally produce. Unfortunately, in my experience this culture is actually basically American (with cricket instead of baseball)…

What does multiculturalism mean in this context? If it means what it is often taken to mean, multiple cultures in one country, then faith schooling will support this.

Well yes, that was rather my point. Having separate schooling for different faith groups is explicitly multicultural, therefore anyone who is both in favour of expanding faith schools and opposed to multiculturalism is either a massive flaming hypocrite or suffering from serious cognitive dissonance.

Dunc,

I would agree, but remember the policy is to open schooling to all providers (say if we decided to educate kids in a confused and often contradictory manner, we could get together people from the comments of this site to found a free school with a clear liberal-left curriculum (subject to the normal comments from some of us)). So I don’t think that the effect of increasing the number of faith schools is the purpose of the policy. I think the purpose is to try and develop new schools which actually educate, which is surely a worthwhile aim?

Watchman: How is that in any way relevant to my point? If you want to make a different point, go right ahead, but leave me out of it.

“Well yes, that was rather my point. Having separate schooling for different faith groups is explicitly multicultural, therefore anyone who is both in favour of expanding faith schools and opposed to multiculturalism is either a massive flaming hypocrite or suffering from serious cognitive dissonance.”

If that is true then so is this:

Well yes, that was rather my point. Having separate schooling for different faith groups is explicitly multicultural, therefore anyone who is both in favour of cyrtailing faith schools and in favour of multiculturalism is either a massive flaming hypocrite or suffering from serious cognitive dissonance.

Hi Sunny!

@ 27 The argument in favour of faith schoold is blidingly obvious – they produce better results. Which is why even “aetheists” queue up to get into them.

36.

Your original point points out an interesting correlation. But to suggest that the correlation establishes causation (i.e. that the Conservatives support faith schools despite opposing multiculturalism and are therefore either hypocritical or cognitively dissonant) misses the point. My point was that the actual policy is not phrased in those terms but in terms of improving education. Hence the relevance of the point: a policy designed to improve education may actually develop something that encourages multiculturalism, despite the fact this is not the aim of the policy.

asquith @ 6

I also am not enamoured with the thought of my taxes going to evangelical or fundamentalist Hindu or Sikh schools

Are you a Muslim? Or a secularist?

Whichever – why do people always think its “their taxes” that are paying for other faiths’ schools?

Hindus pay a lot of tax.

@26: “But how does that make Conservatives ignorant of British history? It just looks like a bit of a non-sequitor.”

It’s not the recent ruling of the supreme court about the legitimacy of the decision by the Jewish Free School to exclude a boy for being insufficiently jewish that leads me to reflect on the ignorance of Conservatives about history.

It is rather the observable selection of those bits of British history which appear to accord with the (temporary) values Conservatives espouse and the amnesia which prevails regarding those (many) bits of history which don’t.

The evidence from Britain’s history is that leaving the provision of schooling to the voluntary actions of religious institutions and to charities led to Britain lagging behind other west European countries in standards of literacy, which is why Parliament legislated in 1870 for government intervention to ensure all children had access to a basic primary education.

Among the many current public concerns about faith schools is the extent to which they will exclude those deemed to be “non-believers” and the extent to which the taught syllabuses will be infused with religious dogmas and behavioural prescriptions – such as “jidhadism”, to take an extreme example. How closely will the taught syllabuses of faith schools need to be monitored?

A recurring problem for Conservatives is their perennial difficulty in choosing between a laissez-faire tradition for unfettered free markets and libertarianism, a Conservative preference for protectionism (which is why Churchill split to join the Liberals for a while) and their paternalist tradition for social harmony, exemplified, say, by the campaigns of Lord Ashley, the Earl of Shaftesbury, for the factory acts which were thoroughly incompatible with a laissez-faire industrial policy. The Heath government very sensibly took Rolls Royce into state ownership in 1971 to avert a collapse of the company but that was hardly a laissez-faire policy.

Conservatives – not least those who post here – appear to be completely oblivious to the glaring contradictions in the values and policies they espouse.

@38: while faith schools generally get higher results, the problem is this – is this because they’re better or because they attract a higher calibre of students?

Faith schools that are described as such aren’t selective, yes. But they’re more likely to be sought out for children by middle and upper-class parents with high-performing children – and this high performance won’t come purely because of their intelligence, we should note. Thus, here’s the question – are these faith schools better because they’re faith schools and providing a better standard of education as such, or is it because of the standard of their students that they get generally better results?

There’s nothing institutional I can see about faith schools that is necessarily about the faith elements in terms of performance (though I suppose they’re possibly at least better than grammar schools in that they don’t cause quite the same level of negative stigma for their non-students). It seems down to affluence more than anything. Indeed, the value-added rankings of schools (i.e. how much schools improve their students’ performance – this cannot in the slightest be perfectly measured but it’s an indicator) suggest them doing much more poorly, and while they’re still fairly strong there isn’t as absolute divide.

Question is, if this is true, are faith schools better than the alternatives? They seem to do much the same as grammar schools, except with a little less meritocracy, a little more closing of communities and classes (in the social sense), and a little less elitism; on balance, I’m not sure honestly.

The biggest problem with any sort of separate schooling in my mind seems to be the two-tier system it sets up, though. The middle classes and those prepared to work for it in the working classes have their way out of the rest of the system; thus, it will be these strong-performing schools that will get the attention and probably the funding and encouragement, while other schools are seen as homing those who didn’t try for it, which is worrying. (forgive me if that’s strayed a little onto the slippery slope fallacy)

That is a fair assessment IMO on reasons why faith schools generally attain better exam results than non-selective maintained schools. But I don’t think it goes far enough in considering factors contributing to the inferior attainment of non-selective maintained schools.

Differences in parental motivation is probably part of it and neighbourhood cultures another in the places where faith schools are situated. But I think it needs to be recognised that some local education authorities are none too keen to boost local school standards, partly because of folk lore that better schooling will lead to an exodus of the best and brightest and partly because better schooling is thought likely, sooner or later, to change the political balance of the local council.

The evidence from Britain’s history is that leaving the provision of schooling to the voluntary actions of religious institutions and to charities led to Britain lagging behind other west European countries in standards of literacy, which is why Parliament legislated in 1870 for government intervention to ensure all children had access to a basic primary education.

No, the evidence from British history is that leaving the provision of schooling and funding of that provision to religious institutions and charities led to lagging standards. If the Tories were proposing the abolition of state funded education and its replacement with voluntary religious and charitable education, then you could argue that they were ignoring the clear lessons of British history. But they aren’t. They are proposing the partial decoupling of state funding and state provision of education. Which is entirely different.

@37: One can be in favour of multiculturalism generally without necessarily being in favour of state funding of specific multicultural institutions. For example, I’m not in favour of state-funding for faith healers.

43. Bob b.Last para. That is a very worrying point improved schooling and changing political balence of council: how sure are you?

@37

I’m wholly opposed to faith schools, which are inherently divisive and foster ignorance about others, and wholly in favour of multiculturalism (not, I should add, the sort of segregated monocultures that result from measures such as separate schooling). There is no hypocrisy there: faith schools are mutually incompatible with well-integrated multiculturalism, unless the ‘faith’ element of that school is so minor so as to be effectively irrelevant.

@44: “If the Tories were proposing the abolition of state funded education and its replacement with voluntary religious and charitable education, then you could argue that they were ignoring the clear lessons of British history. But they aren’t.”

Never mind. Under the new Conservative policy for Localism, local education authorities will, of course, be free to ban new faith schools on the grounds that such schools are socially divisive, disruptive of social harmony and promote religious dogmas and myths. Consider the hugely damaging influence of Vatican policy on use of contraception for safe sex practices or the ignorant notions of intelligent design and creationism in the modern era.

Under the new Conservative policy for Localism, local education authorities will, of course, be free to ban new faith schools on the grounds that such schools are socially divisive, disruptive of social harmony and promote religious dogmas and myths.

I doubt it. Reducing the role of the LEAs is pretty central to Tory education plans.

” Reducing the role of the LEAs is pretty central to Tory education plans.”

So all that stuff about Localism and ending Whitehall micromanagement was just another load of cods then?

What I’d also like to know is whether a Conservative government would legislate to overturn the Greenwich judgement of 1989. In case that is a mystery to readers – it usually is – this is the official summary of the effect of this judicial decision:

“In particular the Greenwich and Rotherham Judgements are relevant. The Greenwich Judgement (1989) established that maintained schools may not give priority to children for the sole reason that they live within the LEA’s administrative boundaries. The Rotherham Judgement (1997) established that the principle of admission authorities operating catchment areas as part of their oversubscription criteria in allocating school places was lawful providing that in so doing authorities are not in breach of the Greenwich judgement.”
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200304/cmselect/cmeduski/58/5804.htm

Local LibDem MPs are taking up this cause because of rising complaints that the outstanding local maintained grammar schools in the borough are prevented from giving preference to local residents in the selection of 11 year-olds.

The result is that on the previous census of local school places, only 38% of local grammar school places went to local residents: the remaining 62% of places were awarded in the entrance exams to applicants living outside the borough. By some recent reports, the percentage of local 11 year-olds selected for some local grammar schools is down to only 18%. The pressure to get into local maintained grammar schools is understandable as three regularly achieve better average A-level results than Eton and the rest aren’t too far behind:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/8439634.stm

What I can’t understand is why the local MPs aren’t campaigning for an improvement in the standards in local primary schools so more 11 year-olds living in the borough become capable of reaching the levels of attainment expected in the entrance exams set by the local grammar schools.

So all that stuff about Localism and ending Whitehall micromanagement was just another load of cods then?

Not really. It’s just devolving powers further down the chain away from local Government and towards the parents and local ‘stakeholders’ that are affected.

What I can’t understand is why the local MPs aren’t campaigning for an improvement in the standards in local primary schools so more 11 year-olds living in the borough become capable of reaching the levels of attainment expected in the entrance exams set by the local grammar schools.

Maybe because the Liberal Democrat policy on schools is to ban the involvement of politicians in the day-to-day life of schools?

“It’s just devolving powers further down the chain away from local Government and towards the parents and local ’stakeholders’ that are affected.”

Does that mean that because of devolution, I will legitimately be able to refuse to pay my rates (aka Community Charge) for any council policies I don’t approve of or whenever I think some chief officials are grossly overpaid?

“Maybe because the Liberal Democrat policy on schools is to ban the involvement of politicians in the day-to-day life of schools/”

C’mon. Since when have any politicians been inhibited from expressing concerns about schooling standards? The LibDem have been running a theme that less than half school candidates in the GCSE exams have been reaching the benchmark of 5 subjects at A*-C grades, including Maths and English and who construes that as interfering in school management?

It’s a valid complaint that so relatively few local 11-year olds are up to the standards expected in the entrance exams of the outstanding local grammar schools but local MPs refuse to admit that awkward fact.

The issue remains about whether a Conservative government will legislate to overturn the Greenwich judgement of 1989.

50,52
I cannot comment on your local grammar school, but in the area where my wife used to live (in Lincolnshire) the majority of children from that area, who passed the 11 plus, had attended a private school. Parents who were able to pay privately were able to buy advantage, maybe that’s what is happening in your area, not that the primary schools are failing. That’s why I do not believe in selective education. either by religion or by any other criteria, the idea that such a system singles-out the brightest children is incorrect.

@53: ” the majority of children from that area, who passed the 11 plus, had attended a private school”

I’ve not seen any published research into the primary schooling of those who pass the entrance exams into the local outstanding selective maintained schools in the London borough where I live.

What I do know is that for the nearest school to where I’m sitting – which my son attended, as did Chris Woodhead, a somewhat notorious previous chief inspector of schools – half the pupils presently come from ethnic minorities so I have difficulty believing they mainly went to private schools in London. And btw my son previously attended a maintained school in Yorkshire and he didn’t know he was going to sit an entrance exam until he was 200 metres from the school on the morning he took the exams.

This IS a worry:

“Efforts to help poor white boys catch up with their peers in the early years of school appear to have stalled.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/8485016.stm

What I also know is the borough consistently comes at or near the top of the league table of local education authorities in England as ranked on the AVERAGE results in the GCSE exams. On the evidence, the cluster of good schools in the borough has a positive effect on the GCSE attainment of all schools in the borough, including the non-selective schools:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/8439650.stm

This year, the borough ranked second to Kingston-upon-Thames in the league table but the A-level results were far better than those of Kingston.

Also, the percentage of graduates in the borough’s population is below the average for the London boroughs, which could be a contributing factor explaining the low percentage of local residents among the pupils in the local selective schools.

As for whether 11+ selection is infallible in selecting the best and brightest, we know that it isn’t for a combination of reasons, including the fact that Nobel laureate Sir Peter Mansfield FRS failed his 11+ and left school at 15 without any qualifications to become an apprentice bookbinder.

54. Bob b. Good points on primary schools. One I knew ,practically every child passed the 11+ and some won scholarships to public schools. Another primary school in a wealthy village, barely 20% passed the 11+. What is worrying is that primary and comprehensive schools, in similarly affluent areas can have very different academic records.

If one looks at the physical standards of public schools in the 30s( bad food, cold dormitories and classes) ,many produced high academic standards. There is a story of a POW who was being marched into a Japanese camp. He was greeted by a prisoner saying ” Do not worry , it is not half as bad as Marlborough”. One former member of S Husseins human shield was asked about the conditions , his reply was ” Well conditions were superior to my prep school, we were not beaten and the food was better!”.

If one looks at Asia, there are many schools which have very poor facilities compared to British schools but the teachers, parents and pupils believe in working hard to achieve academic excellence.

Therefore physical conditions of a school are not the most important aspect for producing excellence.

The reality is that there are pockets of Britain, largely inner cities, where a minority of violent and disruptive pupils who usually come from disfunctional families ruin the education of the many. To deal with violent and disruptive pupils we need reform schools with specialist staff including social workers and psychologists. Many parents choose faith schools because of vioent and disruptive pupils significantly lower the standards of the local borough run comprehensive.

Parents who are working as professionals which require high academic standards and employ graduates, are in a good position to judge school and university standards , especially those who employ staff from overseas. It is no good a school or a university saying standards are high if the employers do not recruit from these establishments because they consider the standards are not good enough. These professional parents will select schools which deliver the high academic standards.

The problem is that many children , especially those from unskilled and semi-skilled backgrounds see no point in studying academic subjects. However if we could enable pupils to enter high quality craft training , then we could persuade them to study academic subjects. A pupil who is studying to become a car mechanic may be persuaded that a high level of maths, physics and chemistry is needed to develop a carburettor, a piston or fuel .

If we can have schools with an ethos of excellence, hard work,discipline, competitive sports( 1-1.5hrs per day),music, drama, setting per subject, excellence in academic and craft subjects and reform schools for the violent and disruptive ; then the demand for faith and grammar schools will probably decline.
The demand for faith schools is a symptom that many borough run inner city comprehensives are not delivering high enough standards. If one looks at Eton up to the the 70s it was a comprehensive in the range of abilities – from the Kings Scholars( Eric Blair ) to some Tim Nice But Dims ( several generations had attended the school, so entry was automatic). Lord Carrington was told that he was not particulary bright so he should become a stockbroker, farmer or a soldier.

@55

What can I say except that I agree with almost all and that you put what I believe are very important considerations.

- “What is worrying is that primary and comprehensive schools, in similarly affluent areas can have very different academic records.”

That’s the mostly overlooked point Chris Woodhead repeatedly made – schools with broadly similar catchment areas achieve very different exam results. Connecting exam results with affluence is grossly exaggerated. Some affluent cities are rated amazingly low in the league table of local education authorities. Also, correlations between local spending on schooling and exam results aren’t especially good.

- “If one looks at the physical standards of public schools in the 30s (bad food, cold dormitories and classes), many produced high academic standards.”

It’s wrong to suggest causality IMO. Crime and football hooliganism were both relatively low in the 1930s, despite the high unemployment. Social values were very different then for reasons we don’t understand. I’ve remarked before about how openly gay relationships – as amomg the Bloomsbury group – were discretely overlooked: compare that with the treatment of Alan Turing in the early 1950s which led to his suicide.

- “If one looks at Asia, there are many schools which have very poor facilities compared to British schools but the teachers, parents and pupils believe in working hard to achieve academic excellence.”

Absolutely: large classes in South Korea don’t prevent high standards of attainment in international tests. In Japan, 16 year-olds are expected to read and write 600 of the Japanese characters as a minimum attainment.

- “The problem is that many children, especially those from unskilled and semi-skilled backgrounds see no point in studying academic subjects.”

Absolutely – the practical significance of academic subjects is often not appreciated. About a decade back I became involved in a forum debate such as this over trigonometry in schools which was argued to be unnecessary. That’s nonsense because understanding trig is essential for engineering calculations, surveying and for the mathematical transformations in developing video games, an industry in which Britain has a competitive strength.

I really don’t understand how having more faith schools will effect any of that in the overall picture..

Having grown up through both “faith schools” and not, both here and abroad, my view is quite simple and has damn all to do with education theory.

Governments and religions should be different greasy poles: I suspect that in this company I don’t need to restate all the arguments for the separation of church and state from first principles.

Education is one of the most clear and dangerous instances where a religious agenda can be propagated by government fiat, as in the case of an established Church which also runs some mumble percent of all the primary schools.

I am in favour of choice and multiplicity. I am thus in favour of faith schools. Absolutely that choice should be available for people to buy. I am one hundred percent against faith schools funded, wholly or in any part, with public money.