Why did the gvt get rid of grammar schools?

[jumpingcastles]

I moved to the UK 9 years ago so I don't know much about the education history.

I watched a programme on telly last night on BBC2 called Posh & Posher which left me wondering.

If the grammar schools gave poorer children a chance, why were most of them abolished?

Cos the rich but thick didn't get in

OK. Post WWII the grammar schools were part of the 'tripartite education system' which separated children into three categories based on a test of intelligence and aptitude (?I think) at 11. All categories were supposed to be equally funded and to have 'parity of esteem'. In reality the vast majority of the funding went to grammar schools, and access to grammar places was very variable (in some parts of the country it was as low as 22% of children; because many grammar schools were single sex the number of places available to boys and girls varied; the results had to be skewed to prevent girls taking an 'unfair' share of the places based on their academic performance at that age).

Also, Britain being Britain, parity of esteem never really happened. Some secondary moderns were great, an awful lot weren't. Access to public exams was limited in non-grammar schools, and even by the time I was at a grammar school, there were entirely different exams which had more status and which you weren't entered for unless you were at the grammar school. Technical schools (the third category) were very patchily set up - IIRC the Midlands had quite a few, I'm not sure they ever got going in London.

Many people believed that separating children at this age limited opportunities and actually caused divisive thinking (I remember making an unbelievably offensive joke aged 11 comparing people who didn't pass the 11 plus test to animals. I can't fucking believe that now but I'm not going to blame myself 100% because I was 11 and I was absorbing stuff going on around me). Educationally, the academic level achieved by the grammar schools was very good, and because there were more of them, they weren't so much the pressured hothouses that the remaining ones apparently are today. But the educational level achieved in other schools - i.e, where 66% of the nation's children were educated was thought to be dire (I'm sure people who know more than me can argue that that wasn't the case).

That's why they were abolished, AFAIK.

There are still loads of them around.

Competiton to get in is very fierce.

Wasn't it the labour party who abolished them darleneconnor?

thank you mackerelitai.

The presenter of the prog seemed to imply that it's almost impossible to get a top job in gvt these days without having gone to a top private school.

I personally think that healthy competition amongst children, especially at 11 is good as it helps them find their maximum potential.

I just don't think it was particularly healthy competition jumping. To me it was more like saying 'OK, based on your performance in this competitition, you can never enter another one'.

I agree, mackerel. Excellent summary above. As I understand it, there was a lot of (justifiable) hoo ha from parents whose children hadn't passed and who ended up in secondary moderns or non-selective fee-paying schools, on the grounds that if they didn't pay their children were going to get severely limited options.

Also, a two-tier system was expensive in rural areas and many people genuinely thought comprehensive schools were going to be a much better option than grammar schools because they had lovely new, modern facilities, all sorts of interesting new subjects, they were often co-ed, and it was obviously easier to move from the B stream to the A stream within one school than to transfer from a secondary modern to a grammar school (or vice versa).

In areas where comprehensive schools get a genuinely comprehensive intake, all that remains true.

Oh, and it's not true that there are loads of grammar schools. There are 3117 maintained secondary schools in England according to Wikipedia and 164 of those are grammar schools.

The 11+ sucks. We have grammar and comprehensives here. To pass the 11+ you HAVE to have tutoring for a year at least to pass it. It is not a sign of ability, many very able children fail it, knocking their self-esteem.
True comprehensive education is the way to go.

It was the conservatives who started to move to comprehensives. A lot of people who went to grammars are very against, and one of the best mathematicians I know failed 11+ and ended up at secondary modern and had to fight to sit O'levels (she was female).
11 is very young to decide if people are success or failures.

Grammars were really a labour government scheme though weren't they?

The thing is about grammar schools, though, is that they did ape public schools - eg singing hymns in oak-pannelled halls, playing rugby, learning Latin. By getting an "in" on such things, grammar school products were able to compete socially with those who had been to public schools. I'm not saying that there still wasn't prejudice against them - grammar school children being seen as social upstarts who "buy their own furniture". But it was a leg up.

Comprehensive schools largely (I say largely) don't play rugby, or have Latin mottos, or indeed have the great and the good come to speech days. And there's no one around to give the brightest pupils that "History Boys" push.

I think the point is the a good school is a good school and a lot of them seemed to be private or grammar. I say that having been to a Comprhensive. I think I'd have loved a 'History Boys push' as gramercy so aptly put it.

Not at all joni, they've existed since medieval times. The tripartite system described above - which is what people really have in mind when they hark back to the glory days of postwar grammars - was a creation of the Conservative govt in 1944, and was fostered by subsequent Conservative govts in the 50s.

People who enthuse about grammar schools always assume that they/their kids would benefit from them, I suspect - they never imagine themselves condemned to the shitheap of being branded a failure at 11.

erm sorry the government in 1944 was a national government - though Beveridge who wrote the report recommending the system was a Conservative IIRC.

I'm totally ignorant on this obviously but I thought the biggest time for the growth of comprehensives was under a Labour government (in the 60's).

Ermm, because children were thrown on the academic scrapheap at 11?

One account of the timescale - an account highly biased towards comprehensives IMO.

Isn't that a bit harsh on the Secondary Moderns Sauvignon?

So instead of fixing the broken parts, they broke the bit that worked?

Let us not forget the pivotal role played by Mr Wilsons sec of state for education, Mr Anthony Charles Raven Crosland (the original -call me Tony-) educated himself rather well at Highgate and Trinity but not keen on anyone else being given a chance to better themselves,and his famous quote as vouched for by his widow "If its the last thing I do Im going to destroy every f..... grammar school in England,Wales and Northern Ireland."

I'm glad you mentioned him propatria. I thought I was going mad for a second.

Grammar schools are just another way to allow those with wealth and resources to play the system. Same as private schools, same as faith schools, same as catchment areas, same as any form of selection.

can the comprehensives adapt some features of the old grammar schools then? Perhaps this can improve the comprehensives ?

TheCoalition - interesting! Dont you like the idea of selection? Is it bad?

Sorry, don't mean to put you on the spot!

Lots of parents would object jumpingcastles. There was a thread on here a week or so ago and I was flamed for defending the merits of school uniforms.