DO YOU THINK HOW SCHOOLS CHOOSE PUPILS IS A LOTTERY?????????

[RTKangaMummy]

MONDAY 27 MARCH

Documentary

The Schools Lottery

7:00pm - 8:00pm

BBC2 London & South East

VIDEO Plus+: 1843
Subtitled, Widescreen

1/2

The issue of schools selecting pupils is currently a hot potato, which makes this look at the workings of the 11-plus exam in the 1950s and 60s topical. It's not so much a history of postwar social engineering as a series of personal reflections from the likes of Nick Ross, Sue Lawley and Jackie Charlton on what the 11-plus meant to them. The exam sorted sheep from goats in a particular way, favouring middleclass kids over working-class, boys over girls and thinkers over doers. Children whose skills were practical, like the inventor Trevor Baylis, were branded failures and sent to secondary moderns. It's this perceived unfairness that still lies at the heart of the selection controversy.

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on now

Ooh! No telly so I won't be watching, but is this the programme showing Nick Ross's old school, with footage of this year's test?

yes it was

why did you go there????????

Yes, RTKM, I was there. It was DS1's second choice, so he sat the test. There were lots of cameramen around, but DS1 doesn't think he was filmed. (I certainly hope his conversation with the boy at the next desk who said he'd messed it up but really didn't care as he didn't want to go there anyway wasn't filmed - particularly if the other boy's parents had paid for tuition!)

The gossip around the waiting area had it that the cameramen were filming for a documentary about the difficulties of finding a secondary school in the area and a separate biographical film about the life of Nick Ross. I don't know whether that was the usual Chinese whispers or some disinformation was going on.