Tory authority that ran the first successful comprehensive

From: Arthur A Allott, Ottringham, East Yorkshire.

I FELT rather sad after reading Father McNicholas’s opinion of comprehensive education (Yorkshire Post, April 8).

My school days between 1938 and 1943, wartime years, were also at a grammar school, which was also very good for me, but I do remember the staff tended to be more interested in the A stream pupils, of which I was one. After National Service in the Royal Navy I went on to be a teacher.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

I was appointed to the staff of a rather unique school. It was a Bi-lateral school, with both secondary grammar and modern pupils, boys and girls, in the same building. This school served a large rural area. It was in 1945 at the end of the war, that the Local Education Authority had decided that all children in the area that had passed the 11-plus should go to the local school, rather than travel 20 miles to the nearest city.

The selected pupils that had passed the 11-plus were not taught with the modern children. The parents of some of the modern pupils were asked if they would volunteer their child to stay on an extra year, until they were 16, to take O-levels.

During the following years, these pupils obtained exam results that were equally as good as the grammar pupils. This proved to the staff that the 11-plus was not all that it was thought to be. Eventually, when the school leaving age was raised to 16, selected and non-selected pupils were taught together. We had become one of the first, if not the first, comprehensive schools. A new school was built in 1954. Because this school became so successful, in time it became the model for the local authority new schools. This school had evolved in a period of about 15 years. We had not been “dreaming it up” as Father McNicholas suggested. Purely as a point of interest, this local authority had been under Conservative control for many years.

From: D Wood, Thorntree Lane, Goole, East Yorkshire.

FOR years now, the British education system has been in decline starting with the move to comprehensive schools, one of Mrs Thatcher’s many mistakes. Then continued by the useless trendy lefties, and finally almost totally destroyed by the clueless Tony Blair.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

At last we have an Education Secretary in Michael Gove who has identified the problems and has set about redressing them. We never had such rubbish taught to us, but as Mr Gove recognises, we had English, maths history, geography, and the sciences and left school being able to read and write with joined up writing and were able to do maths without a calculator.

Finally, the teaching unions have a penchant for one-day strikes which cause maximum disruption. This tactic could be easily stopped by enforcing a week’s lock out for every one-day strike.

The loss of a full week’s wages would soon make these self-seeking lefties think twice before going on strike. Michael Gove is doing a great job as Education Secretary, it is just a pity that he is not the Prime Minister.

From: M Hellawell, Cross Lane, Scarborough, North Yorkshire.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

WITH reference to P Rickaby’s comments (Yorkshire Post, April 2), no, you’ve got it wrong.

Michael Gove as Secretary of State for Education has already had to backtrack on some of his ill-thought out schemes.

Ofsted inspector Sir Michael Wilshaw is not exactly an expert in education.

So is there any wonder the 
pair of them have done 
education in this country a lot of harm, and the Association of Teachers and Lecturers is right 
in passing a vote of no confidence.

It’s time that teachers and lecturers were left to do their jobs without continual interference and harebrained schemes from the Government.