London schools
Sir: If your readers were to take Richard Wort's letter of March 15 seriously they would become very confused, educational salvation in London is to be achieved by making the Inner London boroughs education authorities, yet two Outer London boroughs are cited as suffering from high teacher turnover. Inner London's below average achievements are said to be due to comprehensive schools, yet in Inner London we still have a highly selective system. Some 15 per cent of eleven year olds are selected for grammar schools. Apparently no fully comprehensive school exists in England or Wales — yet these schools carry the brunt of Mr Wort's displeasure.
Is it worth restating the basic points at issue? In organising its schools, a local education authority has to start from the needs of most children. It cannot base its whole system upon the needs of a minority. Of course, if it can be shown that a minority is somehoW neglected by the basic provision then the authority must remedy this. The theory and practice of selection at eleven is now thoroughly discredited among most teachers, most parents, and even most members of the Conservative Party. We cannot willinglY go on with a process that is so widelY rejected.
But what about the minority of 'very able' pupils? One reason why selection has become unpopular has been the evidence, going back to the 'early leaving' report of 1954, that its effect is to exclude at least half of the very able from an appropriate education.
Mr Wort will be comforted to know, however, that with the help of the new Secretary of State, the Inner London Education Authority Proposes to remove the last inhibitions on the able and to introduce the fullY comprehensive system that he seems in his better moments to advocate. Tyrrell Burgess Members' Lobby, County Hall, London SE1.
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