Academic selection, with no reference to the family income/location etc is the ideal mechanism for promoting and demonstrating equality of educational opportunity. In my grammar school year, there were pupils whose parents included office workers, tradesmen, solicitors, doctors, sales reps, factory workers and shop workers. Every year was the same. It was socially inclusive, with admission based on merit and not background. This was Salford in the 60s. That same year later produced one fellow of Cambridge, one Oxford academic, several other university academics, authors, at least one leading name in commerce, one pop music entrepreneur and numerous professionals -- teachers, doctors, lawyers, accountants, engineers etc. As grammar schools go, it was good -- and there were lots of them all over the country, too.
However, what prepared me and my generation for the rigours of the 11+ and grammar school was 6-years at primary school. What has changed is both the way children are taught and the way teachers themselves are prepared for teaching. I'm a grammar school product but I'm not here to extol their virtues, great though they are, but to show that they were provided with excellent material to begin with.
It seems to me that then, the job of primary schools was to prepare pupils for a secondary education. Their job was to hand over to secondary schools 11 year-olds who were numerate and literate, with a sound basic knowledge of our pre-Norman history, UK geography and a general idea of countries of the globe. Certainly it was British-centred. And why not? It's only right that we should educate our young to understand our own heritage before we indulge in our ritual self-abasement and attempt to contrive some sort of historical and cultural equivalence with or to other cultures. I'm sure other countries also put their own fundamental cultures first. They are quite right to do this --- we should do the same.
It was generally accepted and understood that numeracy and literacy were the foundation stones of all further education, from shopkeeping to nuclear physics. These pupils were ready for serious education, with all the tools they would require. Of course, this required primary school teachers to have the necessary skills and knowledge and, dare I say it, the willingness to actually inculcate some knowledge into their charges. Oh, yes, and a system which insisted on gentle, but enforced discipline.
I attended a bog-standard Catholic primary school in Manchester, with pupils from a wide social base. As a matter of course, we were regularly tested on our spelling, arithmetic (including a weekly mental arithmetic test) and yes, we learned our tables. Poor grammar was corrected -- by teachers who actually knew what it was. (Basic grammar, that is: clausal analysis came later!)
All subjects were tested annually with proper explorations of what we had actually learned and remembered. No multiple-choice answers then. Guess what -- it actually worked, without ever being intense or elitist. It was simply constant and insistent and yes, quite happy too, even for those less able. The class had over 30 forward-facing, teacher-focused pupils and I strongly suspect that the class of 1957 would, in terms of literacy, numeracy and general knowledge of this country, knock spots off most of today's output.
We can't blame the teachers because it isn't their fault. They too are the products -- victims -- of the relentless politicisation of education and the incessant stream of changes in the way it is organised. It isn't just the abandonment of any selection based on academic ability. It's the attitude which, in a fruitless pursuit of a bogus 'equality', seeks to establish adequacy as excellence, thereby lowering standards, which then makes it easy for the government to claim that results -- and, therefore, standards too -- are improving. Teachers who were educated the "old" way -- and there are precious few of them left now -- despair that those entering the profession who will replace them often lack the subject grasp which used to be standard.
May I suggest that before any sustainable improvement in the performance and output of secondary education can be achieved, it is vital to begin the rescue process in the primary sector? If children are comfortable with the basic numerical functions and are literate, all subsequent learning is made easier and pupils will have more enthusiasm. If they are handicapped in these areas, education suffers and the country is badly served. No wonder science is not attracting pupils: it's made far more difficult if mathematical skills are deficient and students have difficulty reading complex text. That applies equally to History, English etc. The increasing reliance on technology to resolve a mathematical problem only makes it worse: when students are accustomed to having an answer calculated for them, they make progress without actually understanding the basic relationships and linkages of mathematics. Without understanding, such tenuous knowledge is not just shallow, it can be dangerous.
And, to sustain improvements at higher levels, why not have a basic "passport" to Higher education in the form of something like the pre-war Higher School Certificate, which requires passes in English, maths, at least one each of the basic sciences and humanities (eg physics + history) and, importantly, a paper which covered the workings of the UK and it's various systems, say 'British Constitution'? I seem to recall that my Economics A-Level course included a history of the parliamentary system, the legal system and judicial hierarchy, the separation of powers and the constitutional monarchy. I wouldn't mind betting that damn near all today's sixth-formers have little or no knowledge of any of that. No wonder succeeding generations have no proper understanding of the system, no appreciation of the significant role of a constitutional monarchy. No wonder either, that politically illiterate youth will make forceful political protestations on matters they do not fully understand!
