Call for end to selective education as 'grammar school areas' fail

By Richard Garner, Education Editor

Published: 20 January 2007

Parents' leaders are to call for an end to selective education in the wake of exam results showing most of the worst performing schools are in shire counties that have kept grammar schools. They will meet the Schools minister, Jim Knight, next month to demand that the country's 164 grammar schools are abolished.

This year's league tables show that seven out of the 10 worst performing schools on the new index - which records GCSE maths and English passes - are in authorities with selective schooling. Less than 10 per cent of their pupils achieve five top-grade A*-C passes including maths and English.

The figures are all the more stark when set against the fact that only 15 councils in England still have fully selective education systems. The authorities with the largest number of schools in the bottom 100 in the country are Kent and Lincolnshire - both of which have a fully selective education system. Kent and the Medway Towns - which were part of the Kent authority until the 1990s - have 10 schools in the worst 100, including the bottom two: Temple, in Strood, where only 2 per cent of pupils obtain five top-grade passes including maths and English and Oldborough Manor in Maidstone - where just 3 per cent of pupils gain five top grades. Neil McAcree, the headteacher of Temple, blames his school's poor performance on the "grammar effect".

Education authorities which in the past have been considered to be the worst performing in the country - such as Hackney, Islington and Knowsley - are no longer among the worst performers.

Margaret Tulloch, of Comprehensive Future, which will be forming the delegation to meet Mr Knight next month, said: "It sends an awful message to children to tell them that they have failed at the age of 11. How can you expect them to pull out all the stops at GCSE after that?"

Saeed Malik, a parent from Tunbridge Wells, Kent, said: "I think there is a general disquiet about the system. I went to a secondary modern between 1979 and 1984 - and in those days it was a fairly mixed intake. Now, with those parents who can afford it cramming their children with extra coaching for the 11-plus, there are very few pupils on free school meals at the grammar schools.

"In fact here you have the bizarre situation where parents are passing each other on the roads every morning. Those whose children have failed to get into grammar schools are taking them to comprehensives in East Sussex [which is non-selective] which perform better - while some in East Sussex are striving to get their children into the Kent grammar schools."

Leaders of the campaign are pessimistic about their chances of success - even though Tony Blair and the Education Secretary, Alan Johnson, have spoken out strongly against selection at 11.

In an e-mail reporting on a Fabian Society conference earlier this month, Comprehensive Future has been told that Mr Johnson acknowledged that selection was "appalling".

But, the e-mail adds, delegates were told they had to understand "realpolitik". "Labour MPs in Slough, Kent and Gloucestershire et al would lose their seats if grammar schools were abolished," it went on.

The worst-performing schools

* 1 *Temple School, Strood, Kent

* 2= *Oldborough Manor School, Maidstone, Kent;

St Luke CofE School, Southsea, Hampshire

* 4= *Lafford School, Lincoln; * The Ridings School, Halifax; River Leen School, Nottingham

* 7= *Skerton School, Lancaster;*Marlowe Academy, Ramsgate, Kent

* 9= Sir Henry Cooper School, Hull; Oak Farm School, Oakborough, Hampshire; *Parkside School, Plymouth

*School in authority with selective grammar schools