Tomorrow evening, Radio Four apparently intends to broadcast a denunciation of the remaining grammar schools for daring to select by academic ability instead of by the parental income (whether paid as fees or paid as house prices) or the social clout employed by the schools attended by the Radio Four set’s own offspring.
There are, it is said, lots of “middle-class” children at grammar schools. Well, of course there are. Only “middle-class” people have the time, the money and the self-confidence to devote to the constant campaigning necessary in order to retain grammar schools. So it is only in largely “middle-class” areas that there still are any.
“Middle-class” enclaves in other areas, meanwhile, achieve the same effect by tiny (if any) catchment areas, by complicated feeder primary arrangements, by overpriced uniforms, by private school funds to which there is a firm expectation that parents will contribute, by annual residential excursions as an integral part of the curriculum, and so forth.
As a result, socio-economically the most exclusive secondary schools in this country are not grammar schools, nor even fee-paying schools, but nominally comprehensive schools. The Radio Four lot will know all about that. But they certainly won’t be making a programme about it.
The solution to all of this is not to abolish the remaining grammar schools.
It is to restore the abolished grammar schools.
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And who will qualify for them?
ReplyDeletePeople who passed the 11-plus, obviously.
ReplyDeleteBut what would the 11-plus test for?
ReplyDeleteKnowledge? Potential? IQ?
Teh ability to do well at tests?
Knowledge, obviously.
ReplyDeleteAnd certainly not "IQ"! There is no such thing.
Knowledge of what?
ReplyDeleteIIRC, the first 11-plus had a "general knowledge" question about the use of a decanter. It's all too easy to write the questions to pick the "right" kids.
And what are you going to do about bright kids in bad schools who don't get the chance to pick up enough knowledge?
Improve the primary schools.
ReplyDeleteFunny how working and lower-middle-class people stormed the universities and the profession when there were grammar schools but now get nowhere near them, if the point of the 11-plus was to pick what you clearly mean by "the "right" children" (not your word - where DID you go to school?).
What did the exams that Michael, Martin and Buerke passed test? Or have they never passed any?
ReplyDelete