A headteacher has blasted Kent County Council plans to reshuffle the pack when it comes to grammar school places, terming it “illegal”.
Earlier this week, KCC leader Paul Carter controversially announced the authority was looking at pulling grammar school places out of the east of the county and injecting them into the west, where the clamor for a selective school is most intense.
It reignited the debate over Kent’s selective system and the flames fanned further when Cllr Carter, speaking to this newspaper, launched a scathing attack on teachers who have spoken out against the grammar system in the county.
He insisted they had chosen to work in the county and should, therefore, not “moan about it”.
It means the council chief is likely to face a backlash from teachers left fuming by his comments.
Vanessa Everett, the headteacher of high school Mascalls in Paddock Wood, was so incensed about the grammar places issue she wrote to the Chief Schools Adjudicator Dr Ian Craig this week demanding answers.
“This is a longstanding concern [over selection] that has been aggravated because of Kent’s proposals - which at the moment are illegal until they have been consulted on properly - to change grammar places in the middle of the admissions period,” she said.
“I think the local authority should have consulted with others as it is required to do by the Code of Practice on Admissions.”
It comes just weeks after a number of high school headteachers in the east of the county derided the selection system saying it was unfair to pupils and parents.
In particular, they pointed to parents in the west being in a better financial position to coach their children through the exam than those in the east as well as the damage to children of being labeled ‘a failure’ at such a young age.
This week Cllr Carter finally hit back – in particular to Phil Karnavas, head of Canterbury High School, an outspoken critics of grammars. Cllr Carter told us: “I do not agree with him. He has chosen to work in a high school in a selective authority so don’t moan about it.”
The National Union of Teachers (NUT) in Kent called his response “ludicrous”.
John Walder, secretary of the Kent division of the NUT and a former teacher who has worked in schools across the county, said: “That is ludicrous. If you stay in a place it does not mean you do not want to improve it.
“The NUT and all the professional bodies are in favour of comprehensives; equality of access to all people and all children. What a ridiculous thing to say.”
He said the union represents up to around 20,000 teachers in Kent and “the broad spread of teachers do not approve of selection”.
While Mrs Everett at Mascalls was equally opposed. She said: “I would say that is nonsense. Whatever regime you work in, if you think it is not functioning in a way that is benefiting the majority you have every right to speak out.
“We are the ones who see it [the effects of selection] first hand and have to pick up the pieces.”
She added: “The psychological impact of failure in children of that age is quite immense and it does not always come out straight away it can appear in adolescence.”
Kent, which has 33 grammar schools including four in Tunbridge Wells and three in Tonbridge, and Medway, which has six, are the only fully selective authorities in the country.
We reported last week how parents will this year be facing a frenzied race to find grammar school places with some 5,113 children having passed the Kent Test countywide but only 4,458 places available.
In response to the pressure on grammar school places in west Kent, Cllr Carter said: “I’m asking to adjust the provision of places, preserving the status quo so that the percentage of yearly cohort to 24 to 25 per cent remains, which I told secondary school heads I would stick to six or seven years ago.
“However, where we’ve got massive demand in west Kent and surplus places in east Kent, because there are less young people there passing the 11-plus, there would an adjustment in the provision across the county.”
Mr Walder said selection was the cause of the county having the highest number of schools failing to meet the Government’s target of 30 per cent of pupil achieving five A* to C grades at GCSEs including maths and English.
“It has always amazed me that Kent has clutched onto the notion of selective school system in the face of all the evidence,” he said.
Responding to Cllr Carter’s proposals he added: “All of this is really sticking plasters on a gaping wound when we should be working towards a notion of a good school everyone in every community and every area of the county... He is adjusting the problem when the solution is the problem.”
POSTED: 01/11/2009 14:00:00
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