There are more grammar school places than there have been for decades – but competition for them remains maniacally fierce, says the Telegraph’s education editor Graeme Paton. Here are some extracts from the Telegraph…
Grammar schools – traditionally academically selective secondary schools – have existed for centuries but ballooned in England on the back of the 1944 Education Act, when they made up one-third of the “tripartite system”, alongside technical schools and secondary moderns. To their supporters, they were engines of social mobility, giving children – irrespective of background – the sort of free academic education usually reserved for the fee-paying elite. To critics, the system was a form of social selection that sorted children into successes and failures at 11.
By the mid-Sixties, government guidelines had been distributed to local authorities, reflecting the left-leaning educational philosophy of the day, that ordered them to start disbanding the tripartite structure in favour of the all-ability comprehensive school. The death of the grammar was brutal. From a post-war high of 1,207, numbers almost halved to 675 by the mid-Seventies and reached a low of 150 in the Eighties. However, a small number of local authorities – principally Conservative shire counties – resisted Whitehall pressure and retained, to some extent, a selective system.
Today, 164 grammar schools quirkily remain, with the highest concentrations in areas such as Kent, Buckinghamshire, Surrey, Essex, Gloucestershire, Slough, Trafford and Lincolnshire. And, to the horror of opponents, they remain very popular among parents. Figures published in 2011 suggest that almost half the children who pass the eleven-plus – the traditional grammar school entrance exam – fail to get a place…
The sheer popularity of grammars suggests that, for too many parents, the 40-year dream of a comprehensive utopia has not been realised. Nidhi Jaiswal, a mother of two from west London, is typical. Her daughter, Adya, has secured a place at one of the capital’s most sought-after grammars – Henrietta Barnett in Hampstead Garden Suburb – starting in September. The bright 11-year-old took exams for five state grammars, and won places at each before settling on the all-girls’ school.
“She went to a state primary that was rated outstanding by Ofsted, but they didn’t challenge her enough,” Jaiswal says. “The focus seemed to be on bringing those children who aren’t doing that well up to a certain level rather than really pushing those who were high achieving. We didn’t want to face the same issue in a comprehensive school. If we hadn’t have got a grammar, we would have gone private, but it would have cost a lot of money and meant many sacrifices.”
In recent years, despite the continuing popularity of state-funded grammars, calls for an all-out expansion of academically selective schools have been rejected. After the 1997 general election, Labour introduced legislation banning the opening of any new grammars and drafted rules allowing local communities to petition for the end of selection at existing schools (only one was ever held, in North Yorkshire, and local parents rejected the change by two to one).
Controversially, Labour’s policy was endorsed by the Conservatives in Opposition. David Cameron – striving to shift his party to the centre – refused to back the return of academic selection, focusing his education policy instead on new, non-selective “free schools”.
In power, the Tory-led Coalition has also allowed all popular state schools to expand to meet local demand for places. But, in a concession to the Conservative heartlands, this liberation of places has been vocally extended to existing grammar schools. In Kent, the freedom has been exercised in an innovative way by the local council, which intends to building an entirely new grammar school in the town of Sevenoaks – but branding it as an “annexe” of an existing school 20 miles away in Maidstone. It is hoped the new school will cater for 120 pupils a year by the time it opens in 2016.
This development alone could, by stealth, trigger the biggest resurgence in grammar schools since the Seventies, with similar plans being considered in areas such as Torbay and south London.
More at: Grammar schools: why they still trump free schools
This is the latest in a stream of recent media articles about grammar schools (see links below). We’ve also had reports of Ofsted starting to focus on the treatment of bright pupils at secondary level which they feel currently is not good enough. Is it all a coincidence or a case people jumping on a bandwagon … or is there something else going on? What do you think?
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