Grammar Schools Problem

New year ...
new chance to crack the grammar school problem

In 2010 politicians should be targeting the remaining grammar schools - not
to destroy good schools but to find ways in which they can serve the whole
community
Peter Mortimore
The Guardian, Tuesday 5 January 2010
The new year is time to start serious work as parents are telling procrastinating offspring
and party managers are instructing manifesto writers. Selection is one of the issues about
which politicians need to come clean: what they think about it and what if anything they
intend to do about it.
In the early 20th century, successive official reports, including Hadow, Spens and Norwood,
promoted intelligence tests to select children with the capacity to benefit from an academic
education. Selection underpins the grammar and secondary modern divide established after
the 1944 Education Act. It relies on three convictions: that children systematically vary in
ability; that intelligence can be reliably measured; and that it is best to educate "differentiated"
pupils in separate schools. Yet each conviction is questionable.
Of course similar-aged children vary in height, weight, determination, concentration,

motivation, perseverance and numerous other traits. They also differ in musical, artistic and
sporting abilities, although it may be hard to distinguish natural talent from intensive training
by dedicated parents, as studies of prodigies show.
Any proposed distinction between ability and aptitude is spurious, and even the definition of
intelligence is problematic. Should it be based on the speed of reasoning skills or include
memory tests, ability to learn or, indeed, soundness of judgment? The more sophisticated the
definition, the greater the measurement challenges. This is why an unfortunately named
Harvard psychologist, Edwin G Boring, resorted to the justification that "intelligence is what
is measured by intelligence tests".
Many local authorities renounced selection in favour of comprehensive schooling when

evidence from the British Psychological Society and the National Foundation for Educational
Research showed that IQ tests could never be reliable indicators of educability. Not only were
there significant levels of error, but children developed at different speeds and at different
ages.
The 1970s saw a rebellion by parents no longer willing to tolerate selection of one sibling and
rejection of another, especially as rejection could be traumatic and have a lasting effect on
self-confidence. Many schools were reorganised to avoid the "sheep and goats" pattern and to
cater for the full range of pupils.
In 1979, the Fifteen Thousand Hours research project, in which I was a young researcher,
suggested that one of the key factors that made comprehensive schools more effective was a
balanced intake. Schools could manage pupils who found learning difficult as long as they
also had a fair proportion of those who found it relatively easy; a finding stressed by many
later studies.
Over the years, neither Labour nor Conservative governments have been entirely consistent
when dealing with selection. Tory ministers David Eccles and Edward Boyle were against it
and even Margaret Thatcher who favoured it is reported to have closed more grammar
schools than any other minister. And despite his renowned intellectual prowess David
Willetts was apparently sacked because he declined to argue for the reintroduction of
grammar schools.
Labour's legendary Ellen Wilkinson supported selection and Harold Wilson's comment that
grammar schools "would be abolished over my dead body" contrasted with Tony Crosland's
and Shirley Williams's opposition to selection. In more recent times, Harriet Harman's
decision to send her son to a grammar school derailed party policy and the system offering
parents the opportunity to vote for the abolition of selection in their local areas was
shamelessly rigged by the government.
Selection remains a significant factor in 2010. Popular with parents who can afford years of
coaching for their children's entrance tests, it underpins a hierarchy of status, promotes
snobbery and prevents many schools from gaining a fair share of able pupils. Surely it should
have no place in a country wrestling with so many other inequalities?
The prime target of any politician claiming to be a moderniser should be the remaining
grammar schools. The goal should not be to destroy good schools, but to find ways in which
they can serve the whole community, as spelled out in Comprehensive Future's pamphlet
Ending Rejection at 11+. Peter Newsam's recent suggestion, outlined in Education Guardian,
that grammar schools turn themselves into centres of A-level excellence as sixth-form
colleges offers a golden opportunity.
Peter Mortimore is former director of the Institute of Education

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New year ...

new chance to crack the grammar school problem

Of course similar-aged children vary in height, weight, determination, concentration,

Many local authorities renounced selection in favour of comprehensive schooling when

Peter Mortimore is former director of the Institute of Education

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