PM’S schools plan has its benefits

Having read Paul Francis’s article (‘We Don’t Want Your Education/ Head Teachers Attack PM’S Grammar Plan’, Kentish Gazette, December 15), I am very surprised that so many head teachers cannot see the benefits of Theresa May’s proposals.

Those who studied education rather than an MBA would have been able to reflect on Plato’s ideology in The Republic.

The latter considered a static society. However, we are in a dynamic society that has made provision for movement between educational establishments, ie students or learners can move between educational institutions during their development.

Developmental psychologists such as Freud have informed us that children develop at different stages of their lives.

As such we have a system that enables educational and potentially social movement.

The comprehensive system tried to enable subject discipline movement but failed due, in part, to the social isolation of individuals within a system – individual timetables appear to be good for educational/subject development but often create an isolated individual rather than a person who feels part of a group.

For a number of years educationalists and teachers have complained about the numbers in classrooms.

Examples include: if you have 25-plus learners in a classroom during a 50-minute session you have less than two minutes per learner to deal with individual issues – this does not allow for taking the register or dealing with any other issues related to individual learners.

In secondary education, teachers are not delivering lectures that can be delivered to 30-100 learners and followed by seminar sessions.

Teachers in secondary education have very short sessions in which to deal with all issues plus the learning of the subject that the teachers are trying to impart.

If we had more grammar schools, this would have a two-fold benefit – more schools would reduce class numbers and, given the possibility to move between schools, learners would be able to develop at their own rate and achieve when they are ready.

I would ask head teachers to reflect on their educational training, not their managerial training.

There are places for both ideologies, but we need to decide: are we concerned about educating the next generation, or are we concerned about an efficient/economically driven education system? Value for money or the development of humanity?

There is a number of ideologies that drive curriculum development. We need to decide which are most important to us and the future of our children. Brian Butler New House Close, Canterbury