Gary's views

Gary's weekly views

Each week an article by Gary has appeared in the Plympton Plymstock and Ivybridge News in South West Devon. The articles are published here

GRAMMAR SCHOOLS

We have 5 excellent secondary schools in this constituency, and soon a decision will be made about a new one at Sherford. I wouldn’t dream of suggesting it should be a grammar school.
I strongly support the three excellent grammar schools in Plymouth and would die in a ditch for them to be retained and for them to be encouraged to thrive. They sit very happily alongside the comprehensive system we have in Devon and Plymouth and give parents a further layer of choice. The 3 selective schools also have the distinctiveness of being single sex, which, call me old-fashioned, still has some advantages, especially for girls. They have an academic focus, and for the right child, can be a catapult to a high flying future. I know from my own daughter’s time at Plymouth High that pupils come from all backgrounds.

So the recent debate in my own party has been relevant for me locally. It has been a storm in a teacup because nobody in their right minds thinks a future Blue government would close existing grammar schools and only a fool thinks we should go back to a system of winner takes all selection at eleven. I and 4 of my brothers went to grammar school, the remaining brother went to a secondary modern. It took him a long time to get over that kick in the teeth, the last thing you need on the edge of adolescence. My party’s support for our existing grammar schools should have been made clearer sooner in this unfortunate debate.

The real focus should be on raising standards for all our young people. I visited a secondary school in the west of the city a couple of years ago and it was like going to a different planet. We are missing a trick here to lift the horizons of and provide escape routes for the next generation from homes where parents don’t care.

The best teachers should be better incentivised to teach in the most challenging schools; we should encourage other providers of education to step forward – all under the watchful eye of Ofsted, of course; firm discipline needs to be rediscovered for the hard nuts and we have to find the right way of intervening in the lives of very young children so obviously going off the rails;. But whatever we do about our failing schools, grammar schools are here to stay.

posted by Nigel on Friday, June 15, 2007