February 8, 2001 17:18: Parents greedy for kudos make system unfairTHE 11-plus selection results came out last week. The test, administered last autumn, measures reasoning ability, not the amount or depth of National Curriculum knowledge the child has acquired during primary education.

Therefore, by definition, schools cannot adopt teaching strategies to get more children to grammar schools. They all conduct a fixed number of acclimatisation tests, to help the children to get used to the unfamiliar form of the verbal and non-verbal reasoning tests.

This is fair and reasonable and creates a level playing field on the day, enabling all children to give a fair indication of their ability and aptitude.

Otherwise, the sensible policy is that there should be no further specific tuition for the exam.

Educationalists doubt the ability of extra-curricular cramming to do more than nudge borderline cases a little upwards. It is widely accepted that extra tuition can only increase a childs eleven-plus score by a factor of around five per cent.

Clearly, for the majority of children, cramming or the lack of it will make little difference. They will find themselves at schools whose teaching and learning regime will best suit them. But there is a narrow band in the centre that is being poorly served as a result of the misguided obsession that some parents have that their child can only receive a decent education at a grammar school.

If a summer holiday packed with tuition squeezes those few crucial extra points to nudge a child into a grammar school place, when they would otherwise have been better served at an upper school, then that child is faced with the strong possibility of struggling to maintain its position within a cohort of children who are of a more naturally absorbent academic bent.

Similarly, a child who enjoyed a summer break free of pre-exam cramming and accompanying angst (and who would, but for the crammed contemporary, be naturally in line for a grammar school place) will have been displaced, because his parents believed, as I do, that the testing procedure is about finding the right school for the child, based on that childs educational requirements, rather than about the perceived social advantage and the cachet attached to grammar schools.

Some of these parents have not even bothered to go and look at the excellent local upper schools, so that they can at least make an informed choice about the necessity to cram.

I have two children at an excellent local grammar school and my third child is about to go to an excellent local upper school, which I visited on a recent open evening. The head and staff were welcoming and their obvious desire to do their best for the children was impressive.

Had my daughter been in the appeals bracket, I would still have wished her to go to the upper school. Provided that the support and financing of the schools relate to their individual needs, there is no reason why a selective system should not cater equally for all children.

If we agree that streaming is helpful in maximising the potential of all children, then the fact that it takes place over several schools should not matter. But the system will never really provide the best for all children until those parents in that narrow middle band have the courage and decency to allow the system to operate fairly, by allowing children to gain access to the education that really best suits them.". . . the misguided obsession that their child can only receive a decent education at a grammar school"

By.Colin Baker