Friends of Grammar Schools

Publication date: 10 August 2009

Source: The Independent          Page: 30,31

(c) 2009 Independent & Media PLC

Comment | You ask the questions: Michael Gove, Tory spokesman for children, schools and families

Why does no one advocate introducing proper grammar school-style education into top streams in comprehensives? This should keep the grammar school brigade happy and, because children develop at different rates, avoid the pitfalls of the old two-tier system with selection based on one exam. And are you going to raise the bar for entry in to the teaching profession? We should demand a 2.1 or better for secondary-level teachers, as in Finland. Depending on supply, this may involve paying more so should keep the unions happy.

IAN PARSONSON (BY EMAIL)

You are absolutely right, Ian. I am a strong believer in setting and streaming within comprehensive schools. More children should be taught by ability in more subjects. And more children, overall, should be pursuing a traditional, “grammar-style” academic education in any case. I am also an admirer of Finland’s success in getting the most talented graduates into teaching. They recruit teachers exclusively from the top 10 per cent of graduates and it’s no coincidence they have Europe’s best state schools. We have committed to raising the bar for entry into the teaching profession here. We have said that, as a start, anyone who wants to get on a taxpayer funded postgraduate teacher training course should have, at the very least, a 2:2. We have also said that the entry requirements for all new primary school teachers should be higher; instead of accepting just a C pass at GCSE maths and English, we should insist on at least grade Bs.

As a long time beneficiary of a grammar school education (1950-57) I would ask why any government would wish to abolish such schools. What would you do – specifically – to reverse the decline in academic standards?

DR PETER SMEATON, CHESTER

I would emphasise 10 main changes. First, recruiting and retaining the highest quality individuals into the teaching profession. Second, getting Ofqual, the standards watchdog, to fix our exams so they are directly comparable to the world’s best. I want our 16 and 17-year-olds to sit exams which are as testing, and as attractive to colleges and employers, as those on offer in Singapore and Taiwan. Third, allowing state school students to sit truly stretching international exams, such as the IGCSE, which currently only private school students have access to. Fourth, ensuring Ofsted focuses on the quality of teaching rather than the zeal with which a school complies with irrelevant bureaucratic diktats. Fifth, reforming the national curriculum to strip out unnecessary accretions and concentrate on providing a stretching academic programme for all pupils to the age of 16. Sixth, giving teachers new powers to keep order in class, including protection from violence and intimidation. Seventh, liberating the weakest schools from local authority control and handing these schools over to organisations with a proven track record of excellence. Eighth, allowing the very best schools to benefit from academy status, and freedoms, providing they use those freedoms to help other, under-performing, schools. Ninth, encouraging new providers into the state system, as they have in Sweden, by allowing parents to transfer the money the state currently spends on their child’s education to the sort of school they really want. And tenth, reforming pupil funding to ensure more resources are spent on the very poorest – to help reverse the widening gap in our education system between the fortunate and the forgotten.

Would education policy be easier to formulate and more in accord with actuality if it started from the premise that there is no such thing as a bad school, only bad parents?

CHRIS LATIMER, WALSALL

No. The quality of schools matters immensely. You only need to look at what’s been achieved by brilliant schools in areas where there’s been a culture of low aspiration and educational failure. Whether its the KIPP Charter schools in America, the new free schools in Sweden, Mossbourne Academy in Hackney, Manchester Academy in Moss Side, or Haberdashers’ Aske’s Hatcham in Lewisham, the importance of a good school in transforming disadvantaged children’s lives cannot be overestimated.