Mrs H V Wortley (School selection is vindicated, July 30) is right to say that grammar schools took in out of borough pupils even before the Greenwich Judgement in order to keep grammar schools open at a time of falling rolls. However, the number of out of borough pupils then was much smaller than it is now. In 1990, 24 per cent of the pupils came from outside Sutton. This percentage has risen steadily until it is now 54 per cent. Last September only 16 per cent of Sutton's primary pupils got into a Sutton grammar school.
The present 16+ exam results are higher now than they have ever been for the following reason: since the grammar schools have become grant-maintained they have been able to choose pupils with the highest scores from a wider area, Sutton children who would normally have passed the 11+ set by Sutton's LEA now are losing out. Why do academic children have to be segregated from the rest when the criteria for who is and who isn't academic can be arbitrarily altered in the way I describe? Why not let children develop at their own pace in schools which cater for all abilities? Primary schools cater for all abilities, so why not secondaries?
Schools selection is by no means vindicated.
INGE TROTT
Quarry Park Road
Cheam
Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.
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