Why grammar lobbyists are failing their very own test

The campaign to retain academic selection is, in fact, sowing the seeds of its destruction, argues Neil Morton, headmaster of Portora Royal School whose famous old boys include Oscar Wilde, Neil Hannon and Samuel Beckett

Monday, May 12, 2008

Success in this independently administered examination — it is claimed — will be a requirement of entry into 31 of our grammar schools.

What surprises me is that no one has commented on the core contradiction in this strategy: the construction and piloting of a reliable standardised test is a lengthy business, yet members of a group claiming to represent quality in education are prepared to select pupils by a process which will be untested and unpiloted.

It is not the only contradiction which runs through this organisation.

The association's leaders claim that only by academic selection can they ensure continuing quality in outcomes. Yet while making such claims, many of their member schools accept pupils who achieve C grades as determined by the present transfer tests; some will accept D grades.

The irony extends further: several of the schools represented by the Association for Quality Education have failed this year to attract sufficient first preference applications to meet their intake quota.

They will have empty places which they hope to fill by second preference applications.

The question arises as to whom they intend to select through the Association's common entrance tests.

However, the third contradiction which mars the Association for Quality Education's position is the most serious one: its bluster in pursuit of the retention of academic selection could result in the demise of grammar schools.

The story is this: the argument concerning academic selection at 11-plus has not been one restricted to educational professionals. It has become an issue of contention in which political parties have taken contrary positions.

The resulting ideological clash has been manifest in the dog-fighting between the Education minister and the Education committee of the Assembly. All parties now agree that this has been unseemly and damaging.

It is likely that a compromise could be struck: grammar schools will be permitted to continue selecting their pupils by a high stakes test, but their intake will be restricted to a more academic intake.

In 2008, grammar schools are educating the top 42%. A cap on intake in 2010 to around 27% — A grades and some Bs — will mean that many grammar schools will have empty seats.

There will be redundancies, forced amalgamations and closures. If such a scenario were to be realised, the Association for Quality Education, by the blind pursuit of selection, would have contributed to the partial demolition of the system it exists to protect.

Of course, the truth is that AQE will not be able to deliver. Its agenda of selection is unsustainable. Many of the schools which have signed up to a Common Entrance examination do not have the resources to manage such rebellion and the numbers of children sitting the tests will be insufficient to fill all of the places available. Schools who will promise preferential entry to children sitting the tests will have to recruit from those who did not sit the tests.

The other issues around the test are just as problematic: graduated fees and appeals. The AQE has yet to indicate how financial relief for parents unable to pay would be determined or administered.

How would an independent body without accountability securely process the personal information which is the key to any means-testing? As for the Appeals Process, I have not found the minister's responses convincing but I do understand her point when she reminds the AQE of the annual round of appeals and tribunals which bedevil the present Transfer arrangements. Do the governors of the schools involved realise that they could be personally financially responsible for the costs incurred?

Such sacrifice is indeed a measurement of their commitment to academic selection.

The members of AQE are honourable individuals who care about their schools.

They care little about other schools, however.

The movement has undermined the credibility of the Governing Bodies Association, has reintroduced competition between neighbouring schools and is fast taking on the complexion of a Protestant backlash at a time when we need to look to a shared future.

Meanwhile, their push for selection has the potential to permanently cripple grammar schools in areas of acute population shift.

Is this scenario really better than the one sketched out by the minister?

What is wrong with a school system which includes 11-19 schools with grammar school ethos and curricula?

What is the problem with having schools which clearly lay out their curricular menu and invite applications?

The removal of selection within a generation could ensure parity between the academic and vocational provided there has been parity of resources.

Then, if, at the age of 14, the fit between school and pupil is inappropriate we will have a system which is designed to offer different but equal pathways. As for the AQE? Parents should withstand the bluster and call its bluff.

Children should consider carefully the school in which they want to learn: if it is on the AQE list, the likelihood is that they will achieve a place without having to sit an examination.