Educational selection at 14 - The danger of a big mistake

SCHOOL SELECTION AT 14 YRS POSTING 3
As I am against the idea of breaking up the school population into separate categories at 14 years, I was glad that the Times printed this first questioning letter on its letter page yesterday and the second letter below in today’s edition maintaining that the new educational provisions can be offered within the existing framework.
On this issue I wrote a posting to the Times education forum School Gate, in which I outline the grounds for my opinion that the redirection of the school population into different streams at 14 years of age is neither desirable nor necessary. This is the third item on this page.

1) Letter to the Times of the 11th January
Sir, I am very glad to read of Lord Baker's proposals. Let us hope that these are more than the educational flavour of the month. But why has it taken so long for governments to act on what engineers, technologists and businesses have been saying for many years?
What we do not want, however, is for the educational system to go back to the 1950s where, from my experience, students were split by selection into groups between the ages of 11 and 13. Some to grammar schools at 11, then some to technical schools at 13 and the rest then left to drown or stagnate in poor secondary "modern" schools until they might get a job.
In my view this was a very bad system and a disgraceful period of our educational history; and yes, partly created out of snobbery. So much potential was lost.
EDDIE BEDWELL Swindon,Wilts
2)

Letter to the Times of the 12th January
Vocational training
Sir, No one has recognised the massive contribution to vocational education provided by the further education sector (letters, Jan 10). The success of 14-16 Key Stage 4 vocational options for school-based students demonstrates how easy it is to provide breadth and choice for this age group through attendance one day or more per week at a local college.
Prioritising the needs of learners over the prestige of league table positions enables students to sample vocational learning, gain qualifications and, for many, start a rewarding vocational career. Why, then, create yet another type of educational facility when high quality colleges already exist with real work environments that mirror the workplace and enable 14-year-olds to sample the world of work away from the constraints of the classroom?
C. Drury
Windermere, Cumbria

Copied from The Times education forum -School Gate

THE NEW CHOICE AT 14+ SHOULD BE CURRICULAR CHOICE NOT SCHOOL CHOICE

The threat of the introduction of a 14+ in the discredited tradition of the 11+ seems to have disappeared with the assurance that selection for the new science schools will be self-selection with pupils freely opting for the courses of their choice. However, the process of selection envisaged in these reforms still needs careful examination.
The change would indeed be massive as, three years after they have left primary school, the population of a school year is sorted out to move into separate categories and distinct schools. From past experience, admission procedure to a new school often entails trauma and the separation of segments of school population gives rise to issues of status and may lead to social divisiveness.
It is a major error to assume automatically that choice in education implies choice of school. Increasingly, with new approaches to school organisation with school partnerships, we have seen that the full range of educational choice can be provided through alternative progress paths across two or more educational establishments. Flexible curricular choice replaces the rigid principle of school choice.
In practical terms this alternative approach would mean that pupils would attend the secondary school of their choice from eleven to sixteen years, but after the age of fourteen, they would be able to opt for courses at a central specialist school on two or more days a week. These days should offer academic specialisms as well as vocational and technical. The pupils' own secondary school would remain responsible for the general education areas of the curriculum and for pastoral supervision of both the general and specialised studies of the individual pupil, arranging for any adjustments of career paths in subsequent years. In order for the efficient administration of this system, further evolution of another recent development in British education would be required - the voluntary grouping of schools into cooperative consortia. These groupings would then have the new specialist establishments at their core.