Grammar Schools: Who Will Get In?
BBC TWO, 9.00PM; SCOT & WALES, 11.15PM
Jamie Pickup’s series has walked a tightrope with considerable skill, highlighting the inarguable inequities of our educational system that favours a selective approach, while also acknowledging its considerable benefits and observing the situation from the points of view of both pupils and teachers. It concludes with mock GCSE exams and students at Erith School, a secondary modern, and neighbouring institution Townley Grammar, having to assess their suitability for further education. Some, it’s fair to say, are taking it more seriously than others.
Townley pupil Tanisha is underperforming and low on confidence, yet keen to raise her game and nurtured by staff aware of her limitations and capabilities. At Erith, meanwhile, Denisa is angling for a place in Townley Sixth Form and seems more than capable of attaining it, but staffing shortages are crippling science classes amid an endless round of supply teachers and stand-ins. “It keeps me awake at night,” says the admirable faculty head Mr Appiah-gates. It’s a desperately difficult situation and one that reaches an unexpected conclusion, as common ground is found between two unlikely bedfellows.