Sir, Your leading article (Oct 15) listed the arguments in favour of grammar schools, which you say are “beyond reproach”, yet you advised against a nationwide return to grammar schools — without much supporting evidence. May I stress three points in favour?
1. Popularity. In the Conservative webcast on its draft education manifesto on January 22, 2010, the creation of more grammars received by far the most votes — yet David Cameron concealed this and dismissed the issue when it was raised.
2. Social mobility. The conservatives proclaim social mobility as a key policy for this parliament. Why do they not recognise that grammar schools have been a great engine of social mobility (witness the background of many MPs)?
3. International competitiveness. Britain continues to slip down the international league tables for literacy and numeracy. This can be arrested if we put aside misguided notions of political correctness and reject a “one size fits all” approach to education.
We must identify and nurture our best brains, whatever their background, while also providing all pupils with an excellent education matched to their talents and abilities.
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Ian Hitchen
Innisfree, Bolton
Sir, Yet again all the haves who are against grammar schools appear to prefer to ignore that children still have to take tests/exams at 11 to decide which stream they are to be in at secondary school and once that is decided not all schools allow changing of sets.
As someone fortunate enough to go to grammar school, firstly in Salford and subsequently in Leeds, my background is more working class than middle class and the mix of pupils I met was to say the least interesting. We didn’t all achieve great things but we certainly benefitted from the ethos of the schools.
Shelagh Delaney was a product of a Salford council estate and attended the same grammar school as myself, and the wonderful Alan Bennett attended the adjoining boys grammar school in Leeds.
Why is the grammar school issue so divisive? As a Labour voter, I say bring back the grammars and the sooner the better.
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Cath Manchester
Chorley, Lancs
Sir, My first teaching job was at a secondary modern school in the East End of London. I knew many children, obliged to leave school at 15, who would have been able to proceed to higher education had they passed the 11+ and gone to the, incidentally much better funded, local grammar school.
In the 1980s and 1990s I was head of a comprehensive school in an industrial town in the East Midlands. We sent many pupils to university, including Oxbridge, from relatively “deprived” families who would certainly not have passed the 11+ had it existed in our local authority.
It is not true that grammar schools improve social mobility. Those of us who have experience of both systems know that this contention is the opposite of the truth. The effect of grammar schools has always been, then as now, to privilege the children of the middle class.
Brian Tyler
Great Easton, Leics
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Sir, You rightly state that society’s goal is to provide top-class education for all. David Cameron claimed that his party would be caring for all at the recent party conference. When will anyone notice that although west Kent has some of the best schools in the country, the county occupies a mid-table position when the results of all its pupils are taken into account. Is there any evidence that expanding grammar school places will help the majority of young people in Kent?
David Trainor
Tunbridge Wells, Kent