The press reports (sometimes accurate!) of what I have said seem to have excited some debate. Excellent. However, if people are going to take issue with me I would prefer it if they did so on the basis of what I think - not what they think I think. I hope that this contribution will be of some use.
Let me be clear, I do not criticise grammar schools. has many good grammar schools. My concern is not with the schools but with the system. There are two separate but related issues. The first is the system of selection, or rejection, itself; and, the second is the way that the selection, or rejection, is made.
I am uncomfortable with a system of selection, or rejection, for many reasons.
The economics of this system are worrying. Grammar schools will always fill and when an area has a declining number of children then another school must lose out. Inevitably, that school’s numbers will drop, their budget will contract leading to staff cuts and shrinking provision. Ultimately, it will probably ‘fail’. It is no one’s interest to have a ‘failing’ school.
A selective system damages the concept of community schooling. Students at grammar school are often not from the area. In fact, the system is not just for since a significant number of students in ’s grammar schools do not live in the county.
The selective system divides not only friendship groups but families. It places many parents in an impossible situation, causes many families to suffer anxiety and places children under significant stress.
Every child is different, every child is good at something and every child walks with genius. There are different types of intelligence. My worry is that selective systems may be seen to value only a certain type of intelligence. Thus, selective systems can create their own, but false, hierarchies of worth. In such a system the perceived success of the few depends upon the actual ‘failure’ of the many.
In
75% of children can be seen as ‘failures’ because they are not entered for the test; or, they are entered for the test and ‘fail’ it; or, they ‘fail’ at appeal. This must damage a young child’s self esteem and confidence. In some cases this damage will linger a life time.
is more fortunate, possibly, than other areas in the country because it does have many genuinely excellent non selective schools. These schools work exceptionally hard to successfully overcome the damage caused to many children by a selection, or rejection, system; but, the fact that they can, and do, do this should not be used to justify the system which necessitates it.
All primary schools are comprehensive yet all secondary schools are not. A selective system is unnecessary. There are other, and I would argue better, ways of providing local communities and their children with education. Local schools, each with comprehensive intakes, working together and utilising their specialisms could provide an area with real excellence. In this way all the children of an area would be the responsibility of all the schools in that area. One school’s success would not be at another’s expense. All children would get a better deal.
However, the decision to have a selective system is a political one made by a democratically elected council and, although I may not agree with it, I accept their right to make it. This brings me to my second and greater concern. The system of testing is seriously flawed.
Children develop at different rates and times. Intelligence is not fixed and to pretend to be able to measure it accurately at 10 or 11 is a nonsense.
Moreover, everyone knows that 'on any given day' a child may perform better or worse than expected. Thus, even if the test were valid it would still suffer from this element of randomness. The appeals process, intended to ameliorate this, is risible.
The test damages Key Stage 2 in a variety of ways. The test is too early. There is a concentration on those children taking the test. Those who pass it then have little left to aim for. Those who fail it, may switch off. Key Stage 2 results probably suffer.
In reality, the testing system tends to reward parental affluence as well as, if not more than, a child’s innate ability. It is not up for argument: grammar schools serve a relatively privileged socio economic group. Looked after children, children who have free school meals, students with English as an additional language, certain ethnic groups, students with Special Needs and so on are under represented in grammar schools.
A significant number of year 7 pupils at grammar school will have had private education, private tuition or parents with the time and resources to coach their children. These children are not necessarily more able; they are just better prepared. What then is any selective system actually selecting ?
Some children have private tuition at a ridiculously young age, some are tutored very early in the morning, some are tutored late at night, some spend the summer holiday being crammed, some are offered cash incentives for ‘passing’ and some are placed under major strain. Some children, who are put through all this, will ‘fail’, and the damage to their self esteem could be profound. It was this that led to an official remarking that some may see this as being pretty close to the ‘emotional abuse’ of children.
I am afraid that I cannot change my view that to some extent success in the test now depends in part upon a parent's ability and willingness to pay for it. This is a difficult area. If parents believe, for whatever reason, that grammar schools will offer their children better life chances then, given that all parents want their children to do well, I would not presume to say that they are wrong. What I do say, however, is that it is wrong to place them in a position where they feel they have to make this choice.