Your views on what makes a good school

Critics of the education reforms argue some schools will suffer

We invited your comments.

Here are a selection from those we received.

My fair means or other, the majority of pupils end up in a school approximately appropriate to their ability because of the social 'selection' explained in this article. It is also well known, but not discussed very much, that many people attend churches prior to their children starting secondary school to take advantage of this social selection. Those who may lose out, however, are the children of those like me who refuse to do this on principle. My children were lucky in that there is a superior non-selective school in the town, but there must be many who are not so fortunate.
Lodge, Wigan

I am a working teacher who is also studying for an MA in Education Leadership and Management. The academics support the views in this article. "Good" schools make at most a 15% - and most likely 7% - difference in the outcome of a student. The rest is socio-economic status. The researchers do not think it is purely money that makes the difference, but a more elusive "social participation" - buying into the whole system of learning, reading and shared values. Such parents are able to use the levers of power to manipulate the system and get their children into "good" schools; but their children would do well in any school. I do not believe the government's reforms will fix this social inequity.
Rob, London

Tony Blair has been caught out in a dangerous game of bluff. His power base of England's middle classes require good schools derived from social selection as Mike Baker reveals; his Labour credentials require at least lip service to helping the underclass. This is his high-wire act. As a parent, he exercised choice. But the only honourable answer is to put standards before structures, fair admissions before choice. The Select Committee proposals are excellent, and vital to any legacy that history will judge a success.
Martha Smith, Coventry, England

This new selection procedure, if it gets through, will be a disaster to our children. It will produce the biggest inequality and social segregation ever seen in our educational system. At least with grammar schools they select on academic ability, so a bright child from a poor family can still advance academically with these excellent schools. So, to me the answer is obvious, we need more state run grammar schools, especially in inner cities and poorer areas, where more children (from poorer backgrounds) can have a real choice about good schools.
Stuart Bate, Birmingham, West Midlands

Well said, Mike, I totally agree with your analysis. It is so simple; of course schools will perform better if they have some control over their intake. Who on earth would send their child to a school where there is no such control ? The poor, the less well-informed, those with no means of transporting their offspring, and of course all those parents with children who had "failed" to get in to their school of choice.
Stephanie, Leicestershire, UK

In all the frantic arguing and vapid political debate, there are two things missing: the opinions, thoughts and feelings of the pupils for whom the system no longer cares, and the professional opinions and advice from the chalkface teachers who have to make things work. There should be a clear focus on the needs of the pupils, not just cramming to get the politicians desired "results", but also their needs as young people, social and personal.
Theo de Bray, Kettering, Northants

You do all of us a service by gently and lucidly exposing the fact that "successful" schools come at a price paid by those children whose parents cannot manipulate the pseudo- selection process, meaning the disadvantaged remain disadvantaged.

Too often schools who have manipulated their intake bask in the glow of their apparent achievement, but as you describe there is a cost to other schools and the children they serve. Equally the heroic work of staff in challenging schools is largely neglected.
Michael MacCourt, Prestwood UK

The "best state schools" were those with a special ethos, a clear sense of purpose, strong leadership, energetic sponsors, and motivated parents and pupils. Curious that this formula leaves out "the best teachers". If ever selective schools monopolise that commodity, then we are really in huge trouble.
Alan Brown, Edinburgh, UK

We need to think long and hard about what the difference between a "good" school and an "academically successful" school is before we start making judgements. If you think the two terms are interchangeable then you need to spend more time with other people's kids.
Pete, Liverpool, UK

We have a very skewed intake because other schools around us are perceived to be "good". These are over subscribed. We have empty places. My colleagues work tremendously hard to give our students the best possible education. But the league tables are cruel. So called "good" schools would simply not want many of our students. Where would Tony Blair wish these pupils to go? I have not seen any answer in the White Paper.
Mark Crossley, Sheffield S Yorks

I live in Kingston and all I want for my children is to go to their local secondary school. Unfortunately both are selective and my children will probably end up going to a school out of the borough. I believe that if you look at the catchment there is a mixture of affluent and social housing and it would be more fair to apply the catchment ruling.
Anonymous, Kingston upon Thames

Great teachers make great schools. I have just come back from the Bronx, where I visited a really tough school in a tough area. They were working miracles with the kids. The staff were outstanding and the kids responded. Instead of spending �20 m plus on bricks and mortar for a photo opportunity in front of a shiny new Academy, they should invest �2 m on getting the brightest and best teachers into the most challenging schools. Teachers teach better than chrome and glass, however new and shiny it may be.
Jo Owen, London

I work in a "bottom of the bottom two hundred" school. This article makes depressing reading. The catchment area of my school hits all the wrong buttons ie: high proportion of children entitled to free school dinners, high SEN, low KS2 attainment, low attendance, other schools creaming off the best students. The only solution in my opinion is to go back to the "true comprehensive system" that was in place when I was at school (in the same town) 30 years ago.

In my form class were sons and daughters of industrial chemists and teachers as well as sons and daughters of bus drivers and road sweepers. Plenty of the latter went on to be the former! What chance of that with the governments proposals? We need a true mix of attitudes and abilities in our schools and a curriculum to match.
John, North East

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