THE END OF SECONDARY MODERN SCHOOLS

Many of you will be too young to remember the strange school system that we had 50 years ago. In those days, in the summer, all children aged 10 were required to sit a State Controlled exam. It did not matter if they had just turned 10, or the next day was their 11^th birthday, or were sick or well, all had to sit this State Controlled exam on the same day. The State also manipulated the 'pass' mark to ensure that only 1/3 'passed'. The 'failures' were told by The State that they were too stupid to be allowed a proper education. Instead of going to a proper school, they were sent to ones that had the worst buildings, the poorest facilities, and the lowest paid teachers. These 'schools' assumed that the children sent to them would never be high achievers, or get to University – so entrenched was this discrimination that they did not allow them to sit O Levels, which was the only route to post-16 education. Thankfully this iniquitous system was stopped, and between 1965 and 1975, almost of these 'schools' were turned into the same schools that the lucky 1/3 were allowed to attend. The greatest advocate of this outstanding improvement in Britain's schools was a pioneering Secretary of State for Education. Herself a product of an elite Grammar School, Margaret Thatcher closed more Secondary Moderns schools than her predecessor, Anthony Crosland. At last all children could go to Grammar Schools, and instead of the State deciding their future at the age of 10, children were empowered to reach their own level of attainment without State interference. To underline that things were changed for ever for the better, these schools were renamed Comprehensives. It is incredible that any politician who wants to be taken seriously should seek to return us to the days when the State decided that 2/3rds of our children were unfit to get a proper education at the age of 10.