News that the first 'new' grammar school for 50 years is to be open in Kent is good news. The bad news is that it is only a 'satellite' school as the Coalition are allowing current grammar schools to effectively expand only in areas where selective education remains.
So, if you are lucky enough to be a youngster in Kent you'll get a fair crack. But if you live in most other parts of the UK, particularly in inner city squalor where the poorest and roughest schools often exist, then your situation isn't likely to improve any time soon.
I meet hardly any Tory voters or politicians who don't support restoring grammar schools nationally. They are undoubtedly the greatest tool for meritocracy ever created in Britain - but the very rich Cabinet all seem to disagree, Gove and Cameron included.
Michael Gove gets praised widely for bringing in free schools - but I'd much rather we had grammar schools and technical colleges in every town and city to properly restore British education to a decent standard that gives the poor and non-academic a chance to get on in life.
1 comment:
Be Brave! --- Why not go the whole hog and mention Secondary Moderns?
Once upon a time, not that long ago, schools actually taught children rather than delivering a one-size-fits-all National Curriculum or more accurately the collective outpourings of failed academics and self-appointed 'experts'.
Many 'SecMod' kids did extremely well and were respected even if they worked on stalls in the local market. I know of 2 extremely popular and wealthy TV hosts and an famous England cricketer that came from a single small school in that supposedly 'failed' system.
Education was real, plumbers gained qualifications from pipework not paperwork, Techs' taught an understanding of technicalities and universities provided real intellectual challenge rather than rubber-stamps for the political elite.
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