Comp!
Next Thursday, Evan Davies will be presenting a programme on Radio 4 about the single most destructive act upon England's education system - the Comprehensive.
This programme could be a typically unbiased piece of BBC journalism, but the advert for the programme that was played at about 5pm this evening betrayed Evan Davies' typical inability to avoid bias - talking of those passing the 11+ being "haves" and those that failed the "have nots". I hope I am wrong, but this programme looks as though it will be used by the BBC as an opportunity to reaffirm the policy of ignoring the truth about variance in academic ability, and to strengthen ranks behind the continued abolition of grammar schools.
Critics of Grammar schools claim that children at 11 are "written off", made to believe they cannot achieve academically and made to feel like "second class citizens". While there is a slight risk of these things, I believe the benefits are not just for those who pass the 11+.
Children who would not have passed the 11+ and who now attend Comprehensives have to watch while other children with far more academic potential, are given more attention. Rightly, schools encourage academic achievement, but for those with no realistic hope of achieving academic excellence, there is little to work for within school.
Children who would have passed the 11+ are continually placed in classes with other children who clearly are not able to keep up with the rigid curriculum, get bored and disruptive and damage the learning of others.
Surely it is better to have an examination that sorts those who have academic potential from those that are going to be more suited to practical education? There has to be mobility for those the flourish after the age of 11, and those in the Secondary Moderns should not be discouraged from taking academic examinations, but the school should be focused on getting the most from the child rather than following a strict curriculum that will not suit all. The grammar schools, meanwhile, can go faster than the current curriculum allows and produce excellent and better results than are currently achieved.
Outside of the UK, people look to us as the people who created the great "British Standard", they assume, wrongly, that we have the best education system. All the time we tolerate schools releasing illiterate young adults and at the same time releasing young adults who, throughout their school life, have never had their brain taxed, we risk sending the message to those countries that admire and respect us, that our system, as it currently stands, is good. Do we want it on our consciences that we dragged other nations' education systems down to ours?
A return to Grammar Schools and Secondary Moderns is well overdue and this failed experiment in social engineering and anti-meritocracy must stop now. Radio 4, for its part, should not be involved in a politically biased piece and I hope that is not what it turns out to be.
This programme could be a typically unbiased piece of BBC journalism, but the advert for the programme that was played at about 5pm this evening betrayed Evan Davies' typical inability to avoid bias - talking of those passing the 11+ being "haves" and those that failed the "have nots". I hope I am wrong, but this programme looks as though it will be used by the BBC as an opportunity to reaffirm the policy of ignoring the truth about variance in academic ability, and to strengthen ranks behind the continued abolition of grammar schools.
Critics of Grammar schools claim that children at 11 are "written off", made to believe they cannot achieve academically and made to feel like "second class citizens". While there is a slight risk of these things, I believe the benefits are not just for those who pass the 11+.
Children who would not have passed the 11+ and who now attend Comprehensives have to watch while other children with far more academic potential, are given more attention. Rightly, schools encourage academic achievement, but for those with no realistic hope of achieving academic excellence, there is little to work for within school.
Children who would have passed the 11+ are continually placed in classes with other children who clearly are not able to keep up with the rigid curriculum, get bored and disruptive and damage the learning of others.
Surely it is better to have an examination that sorts those who have academic potential from those that are going to be more suited to practical education? There has to be mobility for those the flourish after the age of 11, and those in the Secondary Moderns should not be discouraged from taking academic examinations, but the school should be focused on getting the most from the child rather than following a strict curriculum that will not suit all. The grammar schools, meanwhile, can go faster than the current curriculum allows and produce excellent and better results than are currently achieved.
Outside of the UK, people look to us as the people who created the great "British Standard", they assume, wrongly, that we have the best education system. All the time we tolerate schools releasing illiterate young adults and at the same time releasing young adults who, throughout their school life, have never had their brain taxed, we risk sending the message to those countries that admire and respect us, that our system, as it currently stands, is good. Do we want it on our consciences that we dragged other nations' education systems down to ours?
A return to Grammar Schools and Secondary Moderns is well overdue and this failed experiment in social engineering and anti-meritocracy must stop now. Radio 4, for its part, should not be involved in a politically biased piece and I hope that is not what it turns out to be.
1 Comments:
Totally agree Gavin - the Comprehensives are a weapon socialists have used to dumb us down in pursuit of their lunatic radical egalitarian agenda.
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