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Kent looks set to house England’s first new grammar school in five decades having been given the green light by Education Secretary Nicky Morgan.
Weald of Kent Grammar School in Tonbridge will host 450 girls, despite there being a ‘ban’ on new grammar schools by the Government. However, Mrs Morgan has called the expansion ‘genuine’, insisting how the move doesn’t alter the Government’s stance on selective schools.
But what is a grammar school and why do they cause debate?
According to the National Grammar Schools Association (NGSA), grammars offer academic excellence, sporting achievement and community involvement, often sharing facilities and resources with the whole community.
England currently has 164 and Northern Ireland has 69, all of which, says the NGSA, ‘face threats from various quarters’.
Grammars are non-fee paying schools, though they select pupils based on ability which some say is unfair. The NGSA says the schools are not elitist and are accessible to all families, not just those that can afford to pay for an independent school place.
To be able to gain entry into a grammar, potential pupils must complete the 11-plus entry examination, something many parents pay tuition for in order to get their children prepared.
Tuition centre ElevenPlusExams.co.uk says numerical reasoning, verbal reasoning, mathematics, English and non-verbal reasoning are all the areas eleven-year-olds must master in order to ace the exam, describing it as ‘quite unforgiving’.
So, do you think you could pass a set of the assessment’s English and maths questions? Take the challenge:
