SELECTIVE AND NON-SELECTIVE Sts,—If, as Dr. Robin Pedley suggests, local
edu-. cation authorities seek to 'gull the public' by announcing the end of the eleven-plus but not really doing away with selection, he himself is surely not entirely guiltless of using language in a manner likely to confuse.
'So long as you have separate grammar and modern schools, there must be selection,' says Dr. Pedley: and the implied corollary is that when our schools are all comprehensive, we shall no longer select or segregate. No doubt the process of selection by 'setting' for certain subjects within a comprehen- sive school will be less irrevocable; and no doubt some of the more disastrous effects of rigid selection will be avoided; but those who are in the nth set for French will still know that they have been 'selected'—unless Dr. Pedley proposes that all sub- jects should he taught in non-selective groups, a solution which will surely appeal to few teachers?
'In London, the aim of a full secondary education for everyone, including a broad range of sixth-form courses for all who wish to take advantage of them, is rapidly approaching.' A broad range of sixth-form courses sounds impressive: free,' by its breadth, from the narrow specialisation which is so greatly deplored at, the present time, and yet intellectually stimulating in the tradition of the English sixth form. Is this what Dr. Pedley means? If so, then how
are these courses going to be available for all whO wish to take advantage-of them, unless one assumes that all who wish to do so are equivalent to all who are capable of doing so?
But if this is not what Dr. Pedley means, is he not using 'sixth form' purely as a chronological term, to denote what comes in time after the fifth form? No doubt it is perfectly valid to do so, as long as one indicates that one is not using the term
in its accepted sense, for, then nobody will be surprised if the 'broad range of sixth-form courses' turns out to include pre-nursing, commercial, house- craft and similar courses. Let me add that I see no reason why these subjects should not be studied at this level, just so long as we do not deceive our- selves and others, by inflating language, into think- ing that all our plodders can suddenly become flyers.
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