As news begins to emerge of new government plans to revive the grammar school system across the country, the debate on such selective-education systems has been reignited along with the same controversies that have surrounded these types of schools for decades. The grammar school system is a divisive subject, one with passionate supporters on both sides of the argument.
Grammar schools were first introduced as part of the tripartite system, implemented under the Education Act 1944, where state-funded secondary education was split into three types of schools: grammar, secondary modern and technical schools. These schools catered to students of differing academic ability and were intended to provide pupils an education tailored to their individual needs.
Student admission into these three types of secondary schools depended on their performance on the 11-plus exams, which students took at age eleven at the end of their primary education. The highest-marked students were sent to grammar schools where they where given an academia-centered education in preparation for university, while other students who achieved lower marks were either sent to secondary modern or technical schools. However the shortage of technical schools available resulted in most students being sent off to secondary moderns.
The 11-plus exam, in particular, has attracted a lot of notoriety and controversy in the grammar school debate, with popular opinion now tending to agree that eleven is too young an age-group at which academic ability could and should be defined at, setting children down a predetermined path before they have even had a chance to fully develop their capacity for learning.
Even those in support of the reintroduction of the grammar school system are careful to stay away from fully-advocating the 11-plus examinations. Conservative Voice, a Tory activist group backed by three cabinet ministers (co-founded by Liam Fox and David Davies), argued for the dismissal of the 11-plus assessment in the returning selective school system.
Don Porter, one of Conservative Voice’s co-founders, and who is in favour for the reintroduction of grammar schools, has been quoted as saying “Not everything about the previous system of grammar schools was desirable. For example, we believe that the testing of a child only at the age of eleven was far too restrictive. In future, we recommend continual testing to enable children who develop at a later stage to benefit from a grammar school education.”
He also added that “the first wave of new grammar schools should be placed in areas of the country facing social deprivation”, addressing another strong criticism of the selective school system: the fact that the grammar school system has failed to adequately provide equal opportunity to children from poorer backgrounds and, as a result, has provided a strong barrier against social mobility in the country.
Grammar schools have long faced criticism for failing to take in a truly representative number of students from working-class backgrounds, despite well-known success stories of upward social mobility such as Margaret Thatcher, who famously went from grocer’s daughter to Prime Minister through the grammar school system. But Thatcher’s experience seems to be more the exception than the rule when you consider the disproportionate amount of children from privileged backgrounds entering grammar schools (which still exist in Northern Ireland and parts of England) and those from disadvantaged backgrounds.
The extent of private tutoring among children from more privileged backgrounds cannot be ignored when it comes to considering grammar school admissions; it stands to reason that families able to afford private tutoring possess an unfair advantage over poorer families who cannot afford tutoring, resulting in their children being less likely to match the high-grades of students who had access to better preparation. Instead of grammar schools taking in the brightest and most capable of students, they unwittingly tend to take in simply the most tutored; bringing another argument against the 11-plus exams- that they are not an accurate indicator of natural ability.
While research does find that students educated in grammar schools do perform significantly better throughout secondary and higher education, the fact remains only 2.6 per cent of pupils at grammar schools are eligible for free school meals; giving an idea of how representative of the wider population students at these institutions are.
It’s easy to see why grammar schools have their controversial reputation, despite their potential for providing equal opportunity for students of all backgrounds, and it’s for such reasons that the creation of new grammar schools was banned by New Labour in 1998. The schools have largely been replaced by comprehensive schools and only 164 grammar schools remain throughout England.
A modernized grammar school system could yield positive results for the country’s students and provide them with a stronger future, but it could also provide an unnecessary distraction from the provision of a robust and continually-improving comprehensive school system. Tory MP Neil Carmichael, spoke of the danger of the government getting “marooned on the idea that grammar schools are the solution,” instead suggesting that the real focus should be on the “3,600 state secondary schools which is where the battle has to be fought over social mobility and the skills deficit”.
This is a position that bears consideration and a focus on providing a higher standard of non-selective schools could be a more practical solution to improving social mobility and providing higher standards of education. The renewal of grammar schools could even detract from the overall quality of state secondary schools as they lose the best teachers and most academic pupils to the more prestigious grammar schools, allowing for a possible lowering of state educational standards as well.
But if grammar schools can be reinstated under a modernized and carefully laid-out system, they could provide access to a private school standard of education for children who cannot afford it and, as a result, provide an avenue for social mobility to children from low-income households . However, such a system would have to take care not to fall into the same trappings as the past, and this will be the challenging task of the new government if they do decide to bring a return of the grammar school to the UK.