Your interview with Sir Michael Wilshaw and the report on Lucy Powell’s research (News) provide yet further evidence of the minuscule – and probably negative – impact any expansion of grammar schools would have on social mobility.
Those who insist otherwise, often on the basis of highly selective data or individual biographies from the 1950s, 60s and 70s, seem to forget that, in the pre-comprehensive era, grammar schools formed part of a secondary system, in which not only were the schools rigidly segregated, but so too was the curriculum itself.
Grammar schools offered their students O-levels and A-levels and this was essentially the only route into university. For those consigned to secondary modern schools, there were only CSEs (or, in a very high proportion of cases, no qualification at all).
Such a system, notwithstanding the damage it inflicted on the educational and career prospects of the vast majority of 11-year-olds, did at least provide grammar schools with some educational rationale and, perhaps, also enabled them to make a small and highly circumscribed contribution to social mobility.
However, even such a limited and conditional case for them falls away completely in the context of the system today, characterised as it is by a common (GCSE) key stage 4 curriculum, a diverse range of key stage 5 curriculums and qualifications and access to university for 50% of school-leavers.
Richard de Friend
London
The current debate on the unfairness of grammar schools misses a vital point. Children are born with different abilities. Some will naturally be more academic than others. I see no shame in recognising this. We happily nurture sporting or musical talent and, as a nation, celebrate the success of our athletes at the Olympics.
So why are we determined to deny our most academically able children an education that will stretch them and enable them to fulfil their potential? We should recognise that this constant talking down of academic achievement can have a damaging effect on a young person’s psyche, particularly when brighter children are labelled as “geeks”, “nerds” and “swots” by their less academically inclined classmates.
I speak from experience as a 1970’s grammar school girl from the “wrong side” of my Midlands town. Taught by one teacher, 20% of my primary class of 40 went on to grammar school. A high proportion of the 90 girls in my year were from families on low to middle incomes. The school still thrives, but I doubt it takes many pupils from my side of town these days. There is no shame in being able to perform well at school and as, a country, we should not be afraid to encourage academic success while also promoting technical skills.
Deborah J Balderston
Wolverhampton
You would never guess from the grammar school debate that our educational system mostly fails the many who are not academically inclined. Beware the re-emergence of the discredited secondary modern. Each new grammar would relegate three or four neighbouring comprehensives to secondary moderns.
What is noteworthy about those who criticise comprehensives is their coyness as to the grammar schools’ share of intake. We know that the higher the share, the greater the enthusiasm of the middle class for grammar schools. Conversely, restricting the intake to the 5% who are truly academically gifted as opposed to merely academically inclined will result in a waning of middle-class enthusiasm. This calls for a less socially divisive, tripartite secondary school system consisting of grammars and properly equipped vocational institutes, with high schools for the merely academically inclined sandwiched in between.
What is wrong with becoming a self-employed plumber, electrician, mechanic or joiner? Surely our civilisation is no less dependent on these trades than, for instance, those of banking, marketing or even legislating.
Yugo Kovach
Winterborne Houghton, Dorset