Grammars help the middle class

Like Colin Bullen, I was from a working class background and went to a boys’ grammar school in north Kent, as did one of my older brothers. Two other brothers and a sister ‘failed’ the eleven-plus entry examination, though did perfectly well in their lives despite this. In common with many children both then and since in this county, their talents and abilities had just not been picked up by the eleven-plus exam system.

After grammar school, I went to university, entered teaching and spent my working life in secondary schools of all types in this country and abroad - secondary modern, comprehensive and private, up to senior management level. I ended up doing teacher-training in further and higher education. So, I think I know what I am talking about as far as education is concerned and I have always been against both the principle and practice of educational selection.

As studies have shown in recent years, grammar schools are still stuffed full of middle-class children, (as mine was, all those years ago). Very few workingclass youngsters actually get into grammar schools, even today. In retrospect, many of my grammar school teachers were just awful and the teaching itself was dull and uninspiring since the teachers didn’t have to bother too much, because all of those bright children sitting in front of them would soak up learning, however badly it was presented to them. There is no scientific or educational credibility to the idea that you can separate youngsters at the age of 11 in terms of their educational ability and especially not in terms of their potential - such an idea is a purely political concept. How could you distinguish between the lowest ability groups in a grammar school and the highest ability groups in a neighbouring secondary modern - but this is what the grammar school supporters claim to be able to do. And what message does it send to Kent children that they have ‘failed’ in their education at the age of 11?

Hardly a motivator for lifelong learning, is it? As for Colin Bullen’s claim of a decline in educational standards, there is absolutely no evidence for this. Nationally, far more young people gain a range of good quality GCSEs through the comprehensive system than they ever would have done under the old selective set up.

K. A. Chapman