Education expert's sadness at loss of Ulster's grammar schools
ONE of Britain's leading educationalists has spoken of his despair at "the tragedy" of Northern Ireland giving up its grammar schools.
Chris Woodhead, former chief inspector of schools in England, told the News Letter of his "great sadness" that a system that produced the best results in the UK was being abandoned.
Mr Woodhead was speaking ahead of his appearance tonight in a BBC documentary about the merits of academic selection in Northern Ireland.
The programme shows Mr Woodhead, a firm supporter of grammar schools, and Fiona Millar, a passionate believer in the comprehensive system, as they tour a range of schools in Northern Ireland to assess the best way forward for education.
Ms Millar, a one-time advisor to Cherie Blair, and whose partner Alastair Campbell was Tony Blair's press secretary, was equally adamant that her first visit to the Province had reaffirmed her views.
"If anything it strengthened my view that the 11-plus is an unnecessary and counter-productive test."
In the programme, entitled The School Report, the pair talk to pupils, parents, teachers and the Minister for Education, Caitriona Ruane. The pair visit different grammar schools, secondary schools and primary schools.
"This really is a tragedy," Mr Woodhead said, reflecting on his conclusions from the visit. "I left with great sadness that a system of education that year after year was achieving the best results in the UK is going to be abolished."
The programme includes a fractious exchange between Ms Ruane and Mr Woodhead.
"It was virtually impossible to interview her in any meaningful sense," Mr Woodhead told the News Letter, accusing her of mouthing platitudes.
He also condemned her use of the phrase 'educational apartheid'.
"It was totally stupid comparing a system of selective education in 2009 with something as wicked and appalling as the system of government in South Africa when the previous regime was in power."
Mr Woodhead said that opponents of academic selection displayed "a sentimentality about children, a belief that all are equal when clearly they are not".
He visited a school on the Shankill Road, where he said he was "full of admiration" for the principal's work there.
But Mr Woodhead said that opponents of the 11-plus would be better off focusing on improving primary schools in such disadvantaged areas so that the pupils there have a better chance of getting to grammar schools.
"If the decision is taken to abolish grammar schools then those parents who previously sent to the grammar and can afford to pay for private schools will do that."
The emergence of more fee paying schools will be a retrograde step, he said.
Mr Woodhead also visited St. Patrick's College Bearnageeha, in Belfast, where pupils talked of rejection at the age of 11. In one scene, the principal PJ O' Grady is scathing about Mr Woodhead's support for selection.
Mr Woodhead said of the north Belfast secondary school: "I thought it was a good school, in that it was doing the best for its children. It didn't strike me that these were children whose lives had been broken at 11."
Mr Woodhead said: "Everybody accepts that in a football team you accept the best players for the team. But when apply the same to academic selection, it is the work of the devil."
Mr Woodhead described grammar schools as "the most efficient vehicle for social mobility we have ever had in the United Kingdom".
Ms Millar agreed that many grammar schools are "extremely good" but added: "The problem for me is they exist as part of a system whereby some children are rejected at a very young age and they are often rejected along class lines."
She added: "It is rejection at 11, not selection at 11."
Ms Millar said that many of the grammar schools in Northern Ireland were effectively comprehensives, taking in pupils with low 11+ results.
Ms Millar, who sends the children she has had with Mr Campbell to comprehensive schools in London, said that the documentary experience had made her think that there had been a failure "to fully explain how good comprehensive schools can work".
"The argument always made for grammar schools was that the bright working class kid could escape: some did, but most of the GS pupils were middle class."
The programme also follows four children from local schools as they sit the last 11+ exam — and speaks to them after their results arrive.
The director, Michael Hewitt of DoubleBand Films, said: "What we wanted to do with this documentary is strip away the politics and look at the issue of academic selection purely from an educational point of view."
The School Report is screened tonight on BBC One Northern Ireland at 9pm
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