WE PERHAPS should be thankful that the grammar school proposal from the Government is contained in a Green Paper, for ‘discussion’.
Let us hope this utterly stupid idea is killed off at the earliest opportunity.

http://www.hampshirechronicle.co.uk/news/14748469.Mixed_response_to_grammar_school_plan/
There is a myth that grammar schools magically raise standards. They do not.
One only has to compare Hampshire, a comprehensive school county, with Kent, with many grammars. Overall Hampshire has a better academic record as county schools chief Cllr Peter Edgar, a Conservative and the product of Gosport Grammar School, says in the feature in the Learning Curve supplement inside this week’s Chronicle.
It is preposterous that there seems to be an accepted assumption that somehow comprehensives are schools that clever children need to be rescued from. Try telling that to the children from local schools who since the 1970s have gone on to be high-flying engineers, doctors, scientists, lawyers, journalists or business people.
Standards in schools have been rising for years. The worry is that a group of misguided parents will campaign for one of our excellent schools (Henry Beaufort, The Westgate, Kings’, Perins and Swanmore) to be converted. Hopefully our MP will not be swayed.
Anyone in doubt about the reality of grammar schools, should read Christopher Jarman’s moving article in Learning Curve supplement:

http://www.hampshirechronicle.co.uk/news/14748490.What_it_was_like_to_teach_11_year_olds_for_the_11_plus_back_in_the_1960s/

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