Grammar schools

As a former free school meals kids, who grew up in a council flat with my mum, who was a single parent, I have found it difficult in the last few days to listen to the rhetoric of the naysayers in the wake of the Education Secretary’s announcement over the re-introduction of grammar schools.

I am one of the 3% from a ‘poor’ family who had the opportunity to go to grammar school and will forever be thankful for that. Whilst I have never been a high flyer, there was too much else going in my family for me to be able to achieve my full potential, what I gained, and what I feel is of the utmost importance, is an understanding of the importance and value of education, and what it can help one to do in later life.

Much has been said about social mobility and the ‘haves’ and have nots’. There is no doubt that those families who are better off have an unfair advantage when it comes to access to good education; the ability to move to an area with better schools, or to have their children coached to ensure success in the required exams, whether it be the 11+ or common entrance exam for a public school.

What is missing here though, is the importance of attitude towards education. I am still the only person in my entire family to have obtained ‘A’ levels and some form of further education, largely gained during adulthood, as at the time going on to university was not an option.

I have what borders on an obsession with learning, always taking up the offer of free classes in subjects I am interested in; I just cannot get enough.

Children all have different abilities. Some will be academically gifted, whilst others will have practical skills that may not stand up so well to formal examination. Both types of learning, as long a learning is taking place, have an equal value in modern day society. I believe that this balance between the practical and academic cannot always best be served in a comprehensive school. There is often the argument that gifted and talented children do not achieve their full potential in such an environment. This is in part borne out by the number of families I know who are in the lower social economic demographic, but who invest a disproportionate amount of their small incomes on ensuring that their children go to the best school they can afford. ‘Free school meals’ is also red herring; there are many, many families who are eligible but not claim because of the continued stigma.

It is patronising to refer to lower income families as if they are somehow a different species deliberately being excluded from the upper echelons of society. In my experience this is not necessarily the case.

What is paramount, is that we, as a society, instill in everyone, no matter what their social status, a sense of a hopeful successful future, without barriers. One in which everyone can achieve whatever it is that they want, and that when the time comes the support, and appropriate education, will be there for the asking.

One size does not fit all. The focus must always be on what is best for the individual child, which may well be access to a grammar school environment, or not. What must not happen though, is that this the opportunity to attend one is seen as any form of elitism.