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A TALE of TWO COUNTIES Reflections on Secondary Education 50 Years After Circular 10/65

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A TALE of TWO COUNTIES Reflections on Secondary Education 50 Years After Circular 10/65 A TALE OF TWO COUNTIES Reflections on Secondary Education 50 years after Circular 10/65 Nuala Burgess “That this House, conscious of the need to raise educational standards at all levels, and regretting that the realisation of this objective is impeded by the separation of children into different types of secondary schools, notes with approval the efforts of local authorities to reorganise secondary education on comprehensive lines which will preserve all that is valuable in grammar school education for those children who now receive it and make it available to more children…” Circular 10/66 (1966), School building programmes, Department of Education and Science A Tale of Two Counties Reflections on Secondary Education 50 years after Circular 10/65 Nuala Burgess A report commissioned by Comprehensive Future, and made possible by the generous allowance of an ESRC funded studentship. Published by Comprehensive Future and King’s College London. © Nuala Burgess 2016 All rights reserved. Apart from fair dealing, e.g. for the purpose of private study or research, no part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any forms or by any means, electronic, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner Layout and design by Coinlea Services www.coinlea.co.uk The front cover shows the new wing of Kings’ School, Hampshire (top) and The Royal Latin Grammar School, Buckinghamshire (bottom) 10/65 A political landscape 6 A Tale of Two Counties A Tale of Two Counties market forces and competition between schools into state-funded education. The next few years That this House, conscious of the need saw the introduction of Ofsted, league tables, open to raise educational standards at all admissions, the valorising of parental choice, and the levels, and regretting that the realisa- diminishing powers of local education authorities. tion of this objective is impeded by the The further liberalisation of the educational market separation of children into different place, implemented by the 2010 Coalition, brought types of secondary schools, notes with about an extension of the academy programme and approval the efforts of local authorities free schools. It was only a short step before those to reorganise secondary education on in favour of selective education would find a way comprehensive lines which will preserve to navigate New Labour’s 1998 ban on grammar all that is valuable in grammar school schools. Barely nine months passed between education for those children who now the approval of England’s first-ever grammar receive it and make it available to more school ‘extension’, in October 2015, and a new children ... Conservative Prime Minister announcing plans for the expansion of grammar schools. Circular 10/66 (1966), School building programmes, In the context of the freshly re-energised grammar Department of Education and Science school debate, it would seem timely to examine the impact of Circulars 10/65 and 10/66 on two specific counties, Buckinghamshire and Hampshire. It is now half a century since Harold Wilson’s Labour The are interesting today because they responded government issued its Circular 10/65 requesting very differently to Labour’s request, all those years education authorities to start ‘reorganising’ their ago. What makes a comparison of Buckinghamshire secondary schools ‘along comprehensive lines’. and Hampshire so interesting is that they share a However, with the then Department of Education long-standing tradition of Conservative run councils; and Science’s (DES) power over education and, as any league table will testify, both counties authorities considerably weaker in the 1960s than score highly on school performance. Where these Government control over state education today, counties differ is the way in which they responded comprehensivisation could not be enforced. The to Circular 10/65. Although Hampshire embraced Guardian characterised Circular 10/65 as ‘an comprehensivisation, Buckinghamshire retained its amiably toothless tiger’.1 A year later, Circular 13 grammar schools. 10/66, designed to put pressure on the waverers, stated that the Minister of Education would only Arguments for and against the current Government’s approve funding for new secondary school buildings expansion of grammars schools have been well- if they were for the purpose of non-selective rehearsed, and particularly recently. There is no need education.2 Most education authorities did not need to re-visit them all here. The purpose of this piece is any further persuasion. They seized the opportunity rather to give an insight into how two Tory counties to dismantle the divisive and unpopular bi-partite responded to Circular 10/65, in particular, fifty system of grammars and secondary moderns, and years ago, and how their schools are performing welcomed comprehensivisation. However, some today. I have based my account on a series of areas clung on to selective education. Counties such interviews with parents and educators, some of as Buckinghamshire, Kent and Lincolnshire, and some whom had a role to play when Circulars 10/65 metropolitan boroughs, as in Greater London and the and 10/66 were issued, as they describe their city of Birmingham, retained their grammar schools. experiences of Buckinghamshire and Hampshire’s Thatcher’s 1988 Education Reform Act introduced education systems. I also spoke to the to the Leader A Tale of Two Counties 7 of Hampshire County Council and a amalgamated with Shotover Secondary member of Buckinghamshire County Modern, in 1971, to become a successful Council’s Education and Children’s No one comprehensive, Wheatley Park School. A Services Committee. The stories I have chooses a quick calculation of dates suggests Mrs been told offer a unique insight into the grammar May was approaching her 15th birthday emotional and practical experiences when the amalgamation occurred. of two widely different education school, it Technically, therefore, the majority of systems. The reader may compare chooses the Prime Minister’s education was at for themselves the dubious ease with a comprehensive school. Nonetheless, which Buckinghamshire rejected you. just as with many comprehensives today, comprehensivisation and chose to retain Mrs May is likely to have enjoyed all the selective education, and the passion privileges of being a top set girl in a school and commitment to the comprehensive that was becoming increasingly more ethos which convinced Hampshire to convert all its inclusive and representative of her local community. schools. In an interview with the TES, Wheatley Park’s current Head, Kate Curtis, said she was The current context – a new Grammar School Debate astonished that Theresa May, having made some bold and optimistic state- In some corners of South East England, the current ments about privilege, is considering grammar school debate has been bubbling selection of children at age 11 as a way along for some time. When former Education of promoting social mobility.3 Secretary, Nicky Morgan, agreed to the logistically and geographically impossible ‘expansion’ of Although Justine Greening, our first, truly, Tonbridge Grammar to a site some 10 miles away, comprehensive-educated education minister, in Sevenoaks, other areas saw an opportunity. declared herself initially ‘open minded’ about Campaigners fighting plans for an extension/ grammar schools, she has increasingly reproduced satellite/annexe (call it what you like) of Bucks’ erroneous arguments in their favour. Among them, grammar, Sir William Borlase, in Theresa May’s the baffling suggestion that increasing the numbers own constituency, Maidenhead, felt a new urgency. of grammar schools would provide greater parental Jo Smith, of Maidenhead campaign group, Excellent choice. It is worth repeating that in a selective system, Education for Everyone (EE4E), explained that there only schools do the choosing. No-one chooses was little parental demand for a grammar school a grammar school, it chooses you. Greening has in Maidenhead. She pointed to a poll conducted also made some dubious promises that things could by a local newspaper in which 58% of respondents be juggled to allow more pupil premium places said they were against the idea. EE4E had been at grammar schools. She seems ignorant of all the hopeful that the Royal Borough of Windsor and evidence demonstrating that testing and selection of Maidenhead’s £20,000 feasibility study into a children at 11 is intrinsically unfair and unnecessarily grammar might be shelved. However, if Government traumatic. Token quotas to allow more poor children plans become a reality, it is quite possible that does nothing to remedy this. Indeed, Ms Greening’s Maidenhead’s very own grammar school could be ‘open mindedness’ about grammar schools lay heavy built without any need for a feasibility study to sell it in the air as news that 2016’s GCSE figures, based to the wider public. on numbers of pupils who obtained five or more A*-C grades, were lower than last year. Apparently, It is worth mentioning here that Theresa May’s Oxford the answer to the wholly predictable and politically grammar, Holton Park Girls’ Grammar School, 8 A Tale of Two Counties engineered drop in GCSEs results, (the introduction education all impact negatively on children’s of new curricula and mark schemes; the cutting back learning, and therefore their chances in any test on coursework, and an increase in written exams) situation. Importantly, also, the 11+ has been shown has been to turn
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