One of our grandson’s school friends had to leave school when his parents moved to another part of the country for work-related reasons. The school friend was home schooled for a couple of years before returning to grandson’s school when his parents moved back.
Grandson said that when his friend came back to school, he was at least a year ahead of everyone else in the class. He works hard anyway, but normally there is no opportunity to forge ahead, not to the extent he achieved at home.
Merely an anecdote, but interesting I thought.
11 comments:
I still contend that Grammar Schools (both me and Mrs DiscoveredJoys went to them) are a tried and tested way of producing educated people and are one way of increasing social mobility.
And *still* the Powers That Be choose to ignore the evidence, or provide a respectable alternative. I've come to believe it is another example of classism. Both from those who already bask in their family history and those who pull the ladder up behind them.
That's probably the reason why homeschooling is so heavily discouraged
DJ - I agree, Mrs H and I both went to Grammar Schools, but later came a fairly blatant political intention to pull the ladder up. It will be interesting to see how home schooling develops in the age of remote teaching and AI though.
Bucko - it seems to be. The upper echelons have always seemed uneasy about genuine social mobility gained via education.
I went to Grammar school too. I certainly wasn't the brightest spark there. However, I did better there than I would have done anywhere else purely because of all the better people around me. Unfortunately for us, it became a comprehensive. Comprehensively screwed up. We (the ex grammar shoolers) were in the main, streamed separately so we weren't dragged down too much. We were the junior year for 3 years though, that did our morale the world of good... I think that getting rid of Grammar schools was a disaster.
Cheers!
Tony F
Tony - so you saw it happen and presumably the teachers did too. It would be interesting to know what they thought of it as well, quite a change for some of those who had taught at the Grammar for a long time. Probably not a change for the better.
Our primary school was streamed: two classes of about 45. (The poor wee mental defectives were sent off to a class that used a separate building on the local secondary school site.)
The main defect of the streaming was that we'd finished the syllabus a year ahead of schedule so our last year at primary was entirely wasted studying stuff we'd already mastered. Alas, that's the main thing I remember about Primary School - the frustration at the end. Still, it meant that secondary school seemed wonderful - new stuff every period, eight times a day. Magnificent!
Both my wife and I went to Grammar Schools and greatly benefited from it. Unfortunately the system had changed by the time our sons were of school age so they had to make do with the comprehensive system. They were fortunate enough to be able enough to attend University and get good degrees in serious subjects but I think they would still have had a more balanced education in a proper Grammar School.
dearieme - in our final year we had a teacher who managed to keep us interested. I remember he once brought in a throat microphone and showed us how it worked. I assume was a wartime aircraft but can't remember if he told us that.
John - in our experience it's not easy to assess individual comprehensive schools from the side-lines. Bright pupils seem to do well whatever, but perhaps not as well as they could, although some shouldn't be in school at all.
I went to university and made friends with undergraduates who had been in grammar schools in the sixth when they were converted to comprehensives.
According to their accounts, the results were disastrous. One said she noticed the head mistress notably deteriorate; another said senior
teachers had no idea what to do with little black girls shouting "fuck off, fuck off" at them.
Tammly - I get the impression that it hasn't improved much depending on the catchment area. Even young kids can be impossible.
This!
+100
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