The notion that grammar schools do, could or ever have benefitted more than a few “ordinary working-class families” is absurd (Grammar schools will target ordinary families, 13 April). For every 25 or so members of an age group that are selected into a grammar school, 75 have no alternative but to attend a secondary modern school or to become the secondary modern element of some other school. Social mobility works both ways: up or down. There is no better way of depressing the prospects of most of the 11-year-old children the government says it is trying to help than to ensure the failure of those children at such an early age. The greatest of this country’s ministers of education, RA Butler, knew this. He wrote in 1980: “I believe that the death of the 11-plus combined with the birth of the comprehensive are the most significant developments in education in the past decade. I welcome both that death and that birth.”
The worst possible thing to do now is to create selective schools in coastal areas with poorly performing schools. Creating even one selective school in such an area is likely to create, as anyone knows who has had to deal with this, one or more sub-secondary modern schools. This is an expensive and frankly evil way to worsen the prospects of most “working class families” in the area.
Peter Newsam
Pickering, North Yorkshire
• While the segregation of children at age 11 is ethically debatable to say the least, there are at least three practical issues about grammar schools that argue against their reintroduction or their retention. First, is the lack of an evidence base for the frequent claims that clever children from deprived backgrounds, or indeed any socio-economic background, benefit from attendance at a grammar as against a comprehensive. Second, there is the issue of the fluctuating size and ability of year groups which means that, with fixed grammar school places, able children in a large year group will be denied a place whereas less able children from a smaller year group will gain a place. This fundamental unfairness undermines all pro-grammar arguments. Third, the number and proportion of places at grammar schools varies widely as between local authorities, which is likely to remain the case if they are reintroduced and which creates yet more inescapable systemic unfairness. There is nothing that grammar schools can do that cannot be done in a comprehensive, save the acquisition of a certain social cachet.
Roy Boffy
Sutton Coldfield, West Midlands
• I wonder to what extent Justine Greening is motivated to ensure grammar schools will give priority to “ordinary working-class families” to safeguard Tory votes? In educational terms it seems counter-intuitive to target children of families in a specific income group if the overt purpose is to enhance the prospect of social mobility. So now what becomes the fate of the children of extra-ordinary families, those who are already less likely to be successful in any ordinary test of educational aptitude? Of course this is probably all part of the current strategy to create and manage an economically viable workforce (and the devil take the hindmost). It is less likely to be anything about learning how to be human and co-exist with others. If that was the intention, surely the wiser strategy would be to comprehensively enhance the quality and purpose of education for all. If we could only learn to be better neighbours, social mobility would be less of a problem. Instead we seem destined to perpetuate educational systems that set one group in competition with others.
Dr Simon Gibbs
Newcastle upon Tyne
• Surely Theresa May knows that selection at 11 is unfair and this is a misguided policy. Watching the contortions Justine Greening has to do to justify it is depressing. At least Labour is now asking its members about what Labour policy should be on selection. A resounding “end it” from all members might give some backbone to Labour opposition to this dangerous grammar school plan. For our children’s sake and our economic future we need to focus on the needs of all children and provide the resources for a fully funded, broad and balanced curriculum in comprehensive schools.
Margaret Tulloch
London
• With the Cameron governments having attempted to conjure child poverty out of existence, the May government now seeks to emulate her predecessor by reformulating the meaning of “ordinary working families” in another piece of semantics to justify the revival of grammar schools. Therefore it would appear that public policy is no longer an exercise in objectively improving social conditions but instead involves statistical sleights of hand. All that unnecessary sweat expended by earlier governments when all they needed to do was to redefine the situation. Why did no one tell them the secret of successful statecraft?
Chris Painter
Emeritus professor of public policy and management, Birmingham City University
• I feel sorry for the education secretary (Grammars are dominated by the wealthy, 14 April). Justine Greening had the benefit of attending a socially, ethnically and academically mixed comprehensive school in Rotherham and then the town’s equally mixed sixth-form college. Like my own children and many others who were pupils at the same educational establishments, she went on to one of the country’s leading universities. She then had a successful professional career before becoming a politician. And now her success has been rewarded with the PM’s hospital pass to deliver her policy of restoring grammar schools. Many of her party disagree with this vanity project. Watch your back, Justine.
Harry Bower
Rotherham, South Yorkshire
• Despite all the evidence against grammar schools in raising overall attainment the government wishes to establish more. In a town not far from Kenilworth (which has an outstanding comprehensive), the grammar school is little more than a free private school. There are private primaries in the area which simply focus on passing the 11-plus, wealthy parents pay for additional tuition, while the state primaries carry on with the national curriculum and with no focus on the 11-plus. Not surprisingly, few of the state primary pupils go to the grammar school and indeed most of the pupils are from out of town. If Justin Greening has a way of levelling the playing field, I would be interested to hear of it. And shouldn’t it apply to existing grammars also?
Robert Dyson
Kenilworth, Warwickshire
• Fiona Millar (Don’t believe the hype-grammar schools won’t boost social mobility, 11 April) states that even with the use of quotas, a chain of grammar schools in Birmingham still take fewer free school meals children than are in the local area. Taking the local area to mean Birmingham local authority, this must also be true for a good number of non-selective schools in the city and a feature repeated across the country. Surely all of England’s 3,000 secondary schools have a responsibility to address social mobility issues and not just the 163 grammars.
Colin Parker
Rugby, Warwickshire
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