In all the fuss about grammar schools and selection there is a distinctly
nasty undertone. Some of the most passionate defenders of grammar schools
seem to me to take a somewhat heartless view, possibly because many owe
their own success to a good grammar.
It is my experience that there is nobody more dismissive of the
underprivileged than people who have fought their way up and out of modest
backgrounds. “I’m all right, Darren” is what they’re saying in code. If not
quite that, they are at least expressing a concentration on the brightest
children and their upward mobility, rather like their own. But what about
all the rest? After all, the rest make up much more than half the school
population.
The ardent defenders of grammar schools often have little to say about those
children, and perhaps little interest in them. I too am all in favour of
doing everything possible to offer the brightest children the best possible
education for the country’s benefit as well as their own; I am all in favour
of upward mobility and I am all in favour of the selection needed (in some
form) to produce it for them.
But what about the real pain involved for the children who failed the 11-plus
and were consigned, so young, to a second-rate secondary modern and a
third-rate future? And what about the inevitable downward mobility, which is
an inescapable part of the social mobility that everyone is so fervently
recommending? Besides, it’s better understood now that intelligence is too
varied and too complex to be properly assessed by a fairly crude IQ test at
11.
Any morally respectable education policy ought to be equally concerned about
the average child, the less bright child and the late developer and, for
that matter, all the bright children who would, for all their obvious gifts,
have failed the old 11-plus.
There are some distinguished people today (whom I won’t name) who fall into
that category, and who, like the not so distinguished John Prescott, have
never got over it. Paying careful attention to all schoolchildren and how
best to teach them in their own interests is not just a matter of what we
call social justice these days, or what is morally right.
The political calculation that the public won’t wear grammar schools may well
be wrong, but all the same the Cameroons are broadly right. If we are to
have a monolithic state education system, it cannot be one that separates
the wheat from the chaff at 11. What was more or less acceptable just after
the war, in much less egalitarian and aspirational times, is no longer
acceptable today in a publicly funded universal state system, as David
Willetts says.
It’s true that grammar schools generally worked well for the chosen, and it is
usually a mistake to destroy something that works. Margaret Thatcher to her
shame has the distinction of closing more grammar schools than anyone else.
But now that there are so few grammar schools left – and why not leave them
alone as Conservatives propose? – this is a moment to reform our disastrous
education system in a humane and imaginative way.
The Cameroons are at least trying to catch the moment and it is rapidly
becoming a defining moment for them. Not surprisingly they are finding it
difficult. They accept what all but the most diehard socialists now admit:
that children need to be taught with other children of similar ability.
Children cannot learn well in classes of mixed ability. That’s been
demonstrated beyond denial. But this involves selection, somehow, and the
Cameroons are anxious that selection should not mean segregation.
I do not believe that most Conservative supporters, even those clamouring for
grammars, want segregation either, in practice; it has, after all, a nasty
way of segregating one’s own children in ways one might not like or expect.
But in practice it is difficult to select without segregating.
Willetts speaks enthusiastically of setting and streaming as the way to square
this circle but I am unconvinced. Until recently both were anathema in the
“educationist” orthodoxy, which in great part explains the shocking failure
of comprehensive schools. Nonetheless both have been brought back to a
degree. However, as a total solution it seems unpromising. While I agree
with Willetts’s general approach, I doubt whether he and his policy wonks
have done the research on the numbers.
In any contemporary nonselective school, there is an obvious practical problem
with trying to teach all children with their peers. In each year group of,
say, 100, there will be a lot of children of roughly similar ability,
clustering round the norm, who can indeed be settled and streamed well.
But there will also be a few children of high or very high ability along with
some who are slow or intellectually impaired, and there won’t be enough of
these children to form workable classes even in a large comprehensive.
That’s simply a matter of numbers, because of the usual distribution of
intelligence across the population.
Among 100 unselected children you would normally expect only nine or 10 of
high or very high ability at the most, and only five or so of very low
ability. When I say high ability, I mean – crude though this measure is – an
IQ of 120 or more.
At both top and bottom it would be impossible to find enough children in a
year group of 100 to put together a classful of like-minded pupils; you
couldn’t have classes of two or three. Simply saying the magic words
“setting and streaming” will not make this problem disappear. In theory one
could have bigger schools, but huge schools are bad for children. Many
comprehensives are simply too big.
The Conservatives will have to come up with subtle solutions to this problem
to have a credible education policy. I think the answer is to abandon a
monolithic school system and encourage a variety of different schools,
including access to special schools for the few who need them, and great
mobility between schools.
By its complexity this would take the sting out of any questions of selection
– there would be no obvious educational sheep and goats, no obvious
hierarchy of schools – and this is what the Conservatives are considering.
Meanwhile, they are right about grammar schools.
minette.marrin@sunday-times.co.uk
I usually agree with Minette Marrin, but find Chris Woodhead more persuasive on the subject of grammar schools. 'Atticus' today made a good point - if David Willetts did indeed go to an independent school, he, like other ex-public schoolboys, will not understand the importance of grammars. All current statistics show state education is failing - comprehensives have widened the social and academic gap between the 'classes'. It is precisely the 'aspirational' ethos of grammars which drives social mobility, It is not the case that out of 100 unselected children only 9/10 would be of 'high ability'. The grammars of the 1950s took 25% - 30% of 11 year-olds. I suggest a flexible system as the solution: children and/or parents could opt to take an 'academic' assessment, say at ages 11, 13, 15.....if they wanted to attend a 'selective' school. Equally there could be reverse transfer, as different skills develop. However, some sort of selection/ physical seperation will be inevitable.
Monica Waters, Hayling Island, England
"The Cameroons are at least trying to catch the moment and it is rapidly becoming a defining moment for them. Not surprisingly they are finding it difficult. They accept what all but the most diehard socialists now admit: that children need to be taught with other children of similar ability. Children cannot learn well in classes of mixed ability. That’s been demonstrated beyond denial."
Pity your front page story " We don't need no....selection", flatly contradicts more than one part of the above statement. The school David Willetts is so approving of doesn't even stream!
Try reading it.
Bodmass, Milton Keynes,
The problem is this fatuous phrase social mobility. I don’t know who thought it up, but I can guess. Some dickhead with an ology who failed the 11-plus. We don’t want social mobility. We want social stability. That means we want opportunities for those people with ability to get ahead as far as they reasonably can and proportionate opportunities for everyone else. This will always be complicated, and should evolve unforced, empirically and pragmatically.
Henry Percy, London, UK
A much, much greater threat to 'upward mobility' are the barriers to progression in the workplace and the 'I'm alright Jack' attitude of employers who are self-protectionists and blatantly practice nepotism against any kind of meritocracy. Grammar Schools, Comprehensive Schools or even Young Offenders institutions are all becoming irrelevant because work is gained not by what you know but by who you know. Education is achieving precisely nothing if you do not have contacts who can find you a job at the end of it. Asda, Next and Tesco are full of graduates who can't find decent, reasonably paid work. The Education itself has been dumbed down so much that there is no respect for the outcome anyway. Employers are constantly shouting about the lack of standards. So stop worrying, Education is becoming more and more irrelevant. Just make sure you go out and make the right contacts and your kids will at least have work. The equality of Education is totally unimportant.
judy, Liverpool, england
Soooo...after all the ranting about selection, the solution is basically to separate people more?
Personally, I wholeheartedly agree. None of this everyone's equal rubbish. Meritocracy ahoy!
Martin, St Andrews,
"The real pain" of children who failed the 11 plus.
Rubbish.
I came from a poor area which had access, via the Grammar system, to a school in a middle class area some miles away. Many of my own friends deliberately failed the 11 plus in order to go to the local secondary modern.
For them this was a logical choice because they would not have to get a bus and travel miles to school and they also wanted to be educated with the majority of their friends at the secondary modern school in our village.
Also, like little Johnny at the Grammar, many had chosen what they wanted to do when they grew up. For every young potential doctor or lawyer at Grammar school there was an equally determined young plumber or roofer and they were far more excited about the prospect of an education which would more adequately prepare them for their own chosen job.
There was nothing wrong with the Grammar system.
There was and remains a problem of our society not valuing trades and craftsmen.
Keith, Kinlochewe, Scotland.
We can't afford to write off 80% of pupils at 11 -or at any age. The Germans now regularly score poorly in international comparisons because they've stuck with grammars and secondary moderns.
But to allow setting and streaming to work better we could adopt the US system, separating high schools and junior highs. Then each year could have 150 -180 pupils without taking the total school size above 1,000.
In the age of web conferencing, there's no reason why schools can't cooperate, or compete in offering specialist classes.
Tim Freeborn , Esher, Surrey
I think things are over analysed, our centres of excellence are in the areas of Science, Medicine and Law ..(academia)
Technical skills have been neglected for generations, we have all seen the plumber rubbing his cheeks when it comes to a price for fixing a leaky tap! Apprentiships all but disappeared under Tories meanwhile our academic school kids continued to do very well thank you.
You should the bin man pay of a barristers education?
If the Public sector can't or won't provide a good skills based education then don't give them the money, money should be paid to private companies if they have the ability to provide high quality skills based training.
We have just been informed that the country has quite literally wasted millions training too many doctors at £250,000 per doctor. Do working class kids get even one tenth of this amount spent on their higher education? Well maybe they do, if they are lucky but don't worry we always need more soldiers for the meat grinder.
Graham Wharton, St. Albans, UK
Ms Martin and the others who oppose grammer schools for whatever spurious hand-wringing reason they articulate ought to read Chris Woodhead's column elsewhere in today's edition and pause for thought...
John Tomlinson, Brentwood, Essex
The problem is not, that there are grammar schools, and the problem is not going to be solved by abolishing them. The problem is that we take money from everyone for educational services, and then restrict the supply of services they actually want. The rest get garbage. Then increasing numbers of them pay again to get services they can use.
The answer is not to abolish anything. The answer is to allow as many schools to exist as anyone wants to subscribe to, run by whoever wants to run them, and allow people to spend the money the state has taken from them, on whatever schools they want.
Why is this not a problem with food stores? Only for one reason: we do not have a compulsory membership national state run food service, with stores full of rotting vegetables, and then try to close delis in the cause of equality and because the middle classes live near them.
Abolish state provision and improve quality, Abolish compulsion and not any particular sort of school.
George Johnson, London,
Don't agree with you about grammar schools Minette but that's just my opinion. What annoys me about Willett though is the casual way he has started dropping his "T"'s, a la Blair, presumably to appear more trendy and appealing to that strata of society which Cameron is now so assiduously courting.
Brian Carroll, Hong Kong, China
Why have independent schools (generally considered to provide a "privileged" education?) always had mixed ability classes? Why does state education on the Continent (there considered better than private education, with some rare exceptions) take place in mixed ability classes? Often with some kind of remedial procedure for the weaker students, some provision for late developers to catch up, but no provision for clever children to take exams in advance and "jump" classes, miss out on years of school and consequently be deprived of their childhood in favour of their possible future careers. Does the "rat-race" obsession in Britain really produce better professional people on the one hand, satisfied non-professional workers (as opposed to "failures") on the other? Somebody in the sociological or educational field should carry out some comparative research.
jfy, rome, italy
Isn't it time for a completely different perspective? Pupils misbehave because they are bored. If they were 'streamed' by their interests and these were genuinely catered for a lot of other problems might be avoided. The up-down Grammar vs Comp debate should be dead and replaced by a choice between equally valued academic or (genuinely) vocational education streams. Both should offer opportunities to shift and pathways onto an University education if the pupils desire it and are capable of it. No doubt better class sizes and other support especially at Primary Level could help too. The middle/upper classes, who will look after themselves come hell or high water, are irrelevant to the debate. The State should come up with a system that engages with and wins the respect of all the other groups of parents and pupils. Isn't this a case where equitable resourcing requires an unequal (and regressive) allocation of resources.
Robert Grundy, London,
I'm of a family that probably suffered (or maybe not) from both systems. My mother passed her 11+ (or equivalent) around 1945, but was unable to go to the grammar school because she was from a mining family who could not afford the cost associated with it. The disgrace of the system there is that aptitude was not enough - it was a financial game, too.
I, on the other hand, had no choice - I was in one of the Labour boroughs that got rid of grammar schools by the early 1970s. I would have passed the 11+, and benefitted from the discipline of a grammar school education. Instead I went to a "progressive" secondary school, where I learned how to waste time - a skill I still haven't quite lost, even though I'm now in the writing up stage of the PhD I could have had 20 years ago if the grammar school system had existed. Whilst I am very happy, I cannot help wondering sometimes just whether something has been wasted.
Ex-nurse, Sheffield, UK
"More Myths Perpetuated".
That "children who failed the 11 plus (and) were consigned so young, to a second-rate secondary modern and a third-rate future". Just more of the usual garbage thrown out by the left who cannot admit that the old system of selection by ability worked and by today's standards worked extremely well. What Marrin and so many others choose to ignore is the fact that the great majority of children who went to secondary moderns did NOT have a third or even second rate future. At 16 or 18 they left those schools able to read and write. Many went on to universities or polytechnics and many didn't. They became joiners or builders or hairdressers or joined banks or a thousand other small or large firms and, believe it or not, were and still are happy. The grammar school and secondary modern was a good system and if socialists choose to be offended on behalf of people whom they alone regard as failures then too bad.
Steve, Sutton Coldfield,
No system of provision of education is perfect. England's is obviously very imperfect (though it cearly has improved over the past 20 years).
To guide us in improving it there are some simple principles. Variety is good, providede there is effective choice. Streaming produces waste of ability, but flexible setting minimises waste (especially if backed by effective choice between schools).
And in the age of the internet, educating oneself outside the school and University cirriculum is easier than it has ever been. Making it even easier for more people is probably the most effective, and cheapest, major thing we can do.
David Heigham, Madrid, Spain
The only solution within a mixed ability comprehensive or primary school is to REDUCE CLASS SIZES to a maximum of 15 so each child gets more of the teachers time, and yet NO party is saying this. There are many factors at work within the public school system - parental support, access to academic material at home, a variety of experiences from holidaying overseas to social gatherings, etc - that provide their pupils with a good education, none of which the state sector can provide, but what it CAN provide out of this melange of extras is small class sizes. Why don't they just get on with it instead of wasting the money on Teaching Assistants (some of whom - in my school at least - are illiterate or innumerate themselves), and endless publications and advisors telling us how to improve results!!!
Leah, Oxford, UK
Education and the ability of teachers, methods and standards of buildings, facilities and material to provide a nationwide system has been the subject of discussion by committees of politicians and academics and the subject of many publications for more than a century. After all the political hot air and rhetoric, mostly associated with attempting to achieve nebulous parity through a process of social engineering and target setting to be seen to be introducing equality, there are still enormous variations in the general standard of teaching and classroom facilities up and down the country; and, as long as those divisions remain and as long as politicians believe they can tinker with state education then divisions within society will remain. In other words, and to spell it for the benefit of the servants of this country, politicians, government administration, teachers and academics there has to be streaming by ability and courses to meet the needs of those less academically capable.
Kenneth Armitage, Suffolk, England
Oh, but separating "the wheat from the chaff" via the infallible god of the private sector is fine is it? The real point nowadays is why so many people are trying desparately to afford private schooling rather than accepting the local comp? It isn't segregation by intellect anymore, it is by the almighty sterling. I find those who have attended private schools are the most likely to think that grammars unfair. The working class should stick together, and preferably far away from you, right Minette?
Daisy, Durham,
What Minette Marrin and many others forget (perhaps are too young to have experienced) is that there can be more than one route to fulfilment and success. Education does not only happen in school.
Academic education is for the academic. For some, what we can roughly call the apprenticeship system works better. Some of my primary schoolfriends went on to grammar school and university; more moved out sideways at various stages to learn on the job as engineering technicians, plumbers, articled clerks (accountancy, the law), nursing or business - and the rest.
We were not hooked on paper qualifications. Society was more mobile. To a large extent, people practised self-selection, deciding what suited them and going for it.
To develop the top academic brains, selection is essential. However, to regard the rest as "failures" is egocentric patronising snobbery. Many of these "failures" have more useful, satisfying lives than a discontented intellectual.
Michael Bruce, Selby, Yorkshire
The 11+ worked in the sense that you had some candidates who would surely pass, and a larger group who had no hope. The problem was a very large number who could have coped with a grammar school but were rejected, consigning them for life to non-academic careers.
However, as you say, selection doesn't necessarily mean a monolithic system. If all schools are allowed to select their intake you get the best school in the city, the second best, then the third best doesn't identify itself as the "third best". It becomes a sporty college or a Christian school or something.
Finally, employers from outside the city would tend not to know the pecking order. So getting a sink school doesn't carry the stigma of failing the 11+.
Malcolm McLean, Bradford, UK
Children CAN learn well in mixed ability classes, but it requires good teaching and a truly mixed class. Too many (all?) "comprehensives" were not comprehensives at all, having had the best kids creamed off and comng from one social class. If a school is truly comprehensive (mixed abilties, mixed classes etc. ) it does work. There were so few of them though (luckily went to one). The comprehensive system never had a chance to work properly. Too much of the education debate is from people whose only experience of school is having gone to one. Let's listen to teachers for a change (yes, I am one). They are there every day (nearly!) and know.
Simon Porter, Oslo, Norway
The main reason my generation (war babies) failed the exam was due to what kind of job their fathers had. Some day the injustice of this class distinction will come to light and show what a sham the whole thing was - at least in London it was.
Fred, Dubai, Dubai
Oh, good grief, there are a million bleeding hearts desperately exsanguinating for those who 'fail' in the selection procedure. But why is it defined as failure? Too many people view it as a race which only a few can win. But it's really just an aptitude test. The rigorous academic program I experienced in a 1960s grammar school was OK for me, but sheer hell for those not suited to it. There is nothing wrong with non-academic children, they are just what they are. Create schools to play to their strengths and value them for what they are. But don't force those who ARE academically-minded to learn in lock-step with them. By so doing, you make life miserable for all children.
ScottQ, Boise, Idaho, USA
Flexibility should be the key, with ongoing assessment using a variety of criteria enabling precise adjustment of the learning package for each individual.
In the past, the rigid timetable and fixed lesson format worked against this, with a one-size-fits-all the only option given the insurmountable difficulties of change at short notice.
As learning has become more efficient using a variety of tools additional to the traditional relatively inefficient teacher, blackboard and large class scenario, and computer technology allows complex cut and paste of multiple time slots within the parameters of the available resources, it is now a relatively simple matter to optimise learning events for a wide range of individuals within one or several establishments.
Mischief may be being introduced by attempts to politicise what should be a straightforward task of ensuring that each pupil has access to a share of available educational resources appropriate to uptake ability and capacity.
dr venables preller, Warminster, UK
The solution might lie in schools in one borough, perhaps, clubbing together, so that the brightest and least able students from each school could be brought together in one class (respectively).
This would require creative timetabling and use of resources and may only involve a few subjects.
I went to school at a comprehensive in England and a private girls' school in Australia. The range of abilities was similar in both, but all of the students at my Australian school were more disciplined than those in the UK.
The only subject which was streamed was maths, and it was possible, on the basis of exams to move up into the top stream if one did particularly well on a test.
I don't think there's anything wrong with an 11+ exam, which separates the brightest and the best, and I think there should be more grammar schools. But what's needed is flexibility in the system, so that those who catch up later can also have the chance to do more challenging work.
Alex, Sydney, Australia
The writer has made a very good case for grammer schools as a necessary component of a more complex system with no obvious hierarchy.If the name "grammar" offends then change it.
If ''right" is replaced by "wrong" in her final sentence then it would match the logic of her argument .
Selection at age 11 was not and need not be final. Trades are not inferior to professions and in many cases are better paid.
COLIN , Hong Kong,