* You are viewing the archive for June, 2009
This is a vibrant campaign to save St Bernard’s Catholic Grammar School in Slough from being merged with a nearby high school to form a new school that would not be selective.
This campaign is well worth your support and this can be offered simply by going to this Web site and signing an online petition.
To read more about the efforts of St Bernard’s in the media, please click here.
Grammar school numbers soar under Labour despite law aimed at preventing increase in selective schooling
By Laura Clark
Last updated at 1:58 PM on 27th June 2009
Labour pledged to end selection in 1995 when then education spokesman David Blunkett said: ‘Read my lips. No selection by examination or interview under a Labour government’
The number of pupils attending … Continue Reading
By Julie Henry, Education Correspondent, Daily Telegraph
Published: 9:00PM BST 20 Jun 2009
St Bernard’s Catholic Grammar School in Slough is set to become the first English grammar school to close in 20 years, prompting a fight by parents to save it.
The grammar school in Slough – one of only 164 remaining grammars – faces being axed to make way for one of the Government’s flagship academies.
Under the plans it will merge with a nearby high school to form a new school which would not be selective.
Families with children at the grammar school, founded in 1897, have accused Government officials, council officers … Continue Reading
By Simon Heffer 172 words
Publication date: 27 June 2009 Source: The Daily Telegraph
Page: 24 (c) 2009 Telegraph Group Limited, London
The Conservatives claim to have a sensible education policy, but because of their new-found hostility to selective education it is nothing of the sort. This week David Davis, who used to be shadow home secretary, made the perfectly cogent point that a grammar school had been vital to his progress through life, and to that of scores of thousands of other people – and that the country had benefited accordingly.
His … Continue Reading
BY DAVID DAVIS CONSERVATIVE MP FOR HALTEMPRICE & HOWDEN
1257 words Publication date: 28 June 2009
Source: The Mail on Sunday Page: 27
(c) 2009 Associated Newspapers. All rights reserved
IT IS almost 50 years since I won admission to grammar school, yet I remember it as though it were yesterday. It was a day that changed my life massively, for the better. Bec Grammar School in Tooting, South London, took this young kid from the wrong side of the tracks, with scuffed shoes, tousled hair, shirt hanging out of his trousers, and gave him chances … Continue Reading
BY ANDREA KON
1327 words Publication date: 25 June 2009
Source: Daily Mail Page: 14
(c) 2009 Associated Newspapers. All rights reserved
TWO OLD school friends and I are planning a very special party. It’s a school reunion for the class of 1956 — 110 people selected to study at Kingsbury County Grammar School in North-West London more than half a century ago.
We survived the trauma of the 11-plus examination to win our prized grammar school places and on that first, windy September morning, we stood in the playground, … Continue Reading
“The Government wanted to shake up the comprehensive system and it saw specialist schools as a way of doing that without getting into the difficult area of admissions and selection,” says Professor Smithers. “The comprehensive system had got a bit tired, but as a basis for devising a post- comprehensive system, specialist schools have really been a delusion.”
Nick Morrison 2517 words
Publication date: 26 June 2009
Source: Times Educational Supplement
Page: Page The TES Magazine 10 (c) 2009, TSL Education Limited
Is there anything more to specialist status than cash – and lots … Continue Reading
A slice of the education debate from Germany, whose system was mentioned by Stephen Pollard in last week’s Spectator Debate: “Grammar Schools are Best.”
557 words Publication date: 26 June 2009
Source: Times Educational Supplement
Page: Page Cymru News & Opinion 30
(c) 2009, TSL Education Limited
Emotions run high when choices about secondary school have to be made, writes Frances Mechan-Schmidt.
As the school year draws to a close in Germany, this is the traditional time for parents of primary school leavers to turn grumpy. For this is when … Continue Reading
By Thomas Lowe (to listen to a recording of the debate, click here)
As Matthew d’Ancona, editor of the Spectator, said in his opening comments, the academic selection debate is had round many dinner tables in Britain. Grammar schools arouse fierce loyalties. Those opposed denounce them for creating division and failing the poorest. Those in favour praise them for their pursuit of excellence and their capacity to serve the poorest by increasing social mobility. The lack of agreement is possibly what attracted the Spectator to hold a provokingly-titled debate on the subject at the Royal Geographical Society on … Continue Reading