HOW VOM
The title “Comprehensive School" covers a wide variety of establishments varying from reat large schools containing the full age pag tee ee 11 upwards, essentially bilateral schemes in one building and the so . comprehensives, The Leicestershire Plan is in many ways the most deve o of the two-tier comprehensive schemes. Its main feature is that the children attend High School until they are 14, when they decide whether to transfer to Grammar School or to stay at the High School until they are 15.
This system has recently come under heavy fire from educationalists such as A.B. Clegg, education officer of West Riding, because middle-class children will take advantage of the transfer but working-class children tend not to. The Leicestershire Education Committee asked the Leicester University School of Education to carry out a survey, some of the results of which have recently been published in New Society.
One of the most striking things to emerge has been the tie up between the social status of an area and the transfer rate, Some examples will illustrate this: % transfer 1960 1964 Juror Index Oadby 50 85 26.6 Wigston 33 50 2561 Hinckley 30 38 1565
A vast difference can be seen in the transfer rate between the new middle-class suburb of Oadby and the older industrial area of Hinckley. It was found that 95% of those in Oadby who decided not to transfer to the Grammar School were working class children,
A further point that caused considerable disquiet was the drop out rate of above average children, 95% of middle-dass children in "A" streams transferred at 14 in the plan area, while only 75% of working-class children in "A" streams stayed in full time education until 16. This drop out rate for exceptionally talented working-class children is above that registered in many tripartite schemes!
Mainly as a result of these findings, on the 15th of April the Leicestershire Education Committee decided to move all children at 14 into the Upper High Schools (Grammar Schools) and then allow them to decide after the transfer whether they wish to stay on or not. The clear lesson for socialists from these findings is that careful scrutiny of any proposed comprehensive scheme is essential and the mere title "comprehensive" is no guarantee that the grosser inequalities of a class-biased educational system will be alleviated. ANNOUNCEMENT
Owing to continuing demand we have reprinted es limited number of the Educational Supplement of The Week which contained a whole range of articles surveying the fight for comprehensive education, If readers wish to obbain