History
It was formed in the 1970s. Following Circular 10/65 in 1965, issued by the Wilson Labour government (grammar school-educated Wilson sent both his sons to the independent University College School), LEAs across the UK dismantled most grammar schools. However, many comprehensive areas have sixth form colleges (for many there is no other choice of school after 16) which are often in former grammar schools and usually have equally high standards as grammar schools at A level. The United Kingdom Independence Party publicly supports selective education.
Circular 10/65 was a government circular issued in 1965 by the Department of Education and Science (DES) requesting Local Education Authorities (LEAs) in England and Wales to begin converting their secondary schools to the Comprehensive System. For most of England and Wales, it marked the abolition of the old grammar schools and secondary moderns, and the 11-plus examination. Circular 10/65 was the initiative of recently appointed Education Secretary Anthony Crosland; it is sometimes called the Crosland Circular. It reflected the Labour government's view that the existing Tripartite System of education was flawed, and had to be replaced with comprehensive schools, which had been increasing in number over the previous sixteen years.
James Harold Wilson, Baron Wilson of Rievaulx, was a British Labour politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1964 to 1970 and 1974 to 1976.
University College School, generally known as UCS Hampstead, is an independent day school in Frognal, northwest London, England. The school was founded in 1830 by University College London and inherited many of that institution's progressive and secular views.
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland was not affected by the Circular 10/65, and has kept all its grammar schools. However, there are current well-formed proposals, largely (if not solely) driven by Sinn Féin, to turn Northern Ireland comprehensive.
Sinn Féin is a left-wing Irish republican political party active in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.
Academic concerns of comprehensive schools
At GCSE, comprehensive schools, on the whole, are able to get children to an adequate standard, except for most inner cities. However at A level, notably in science, comprehensive school areas weight-for-weight do not generally produce comparative results with areas with grammar schools. This may be a supply and demand question, because areas with grammar schools have higher average house prices.
The A Level is a subject-based qualification conferred as part of the General Certificate of Education, as well as a school leaving qualification offered by the educational bodies in the United Kingdom and the educational authorities of British Crown dependencies to students completing secondary or pre-university education. A number of countries, including Singapore, Kenya, Mauritius and Zimbabwe have developed qualifications with the same name as and a similar format to the British A Levels. Obtaining an A Level, or equivalent qualifications, is generally required for university entrance, with universities granting offers based on grades achieved.
In microeconomics, supply and demand is an economic model of price determination in a market. It postulates that, holding all else equal, in a competitive market, the unit price for a particular good, or other traded item such as labor or liquid financial assets, will vary until it settles at a point where the quantity demanded will equal the quantity supplied, resulting in an economic equilibrium for price and quantity transacted.
In the United Kingdom, independent schools are fee-paying private schools, governed by an elected board of governors and independent of many of the regulations and conditions that apply to state-funded schools. For example, pupils do not have to follow the National Curriculum. Many of the older, expensive and more exclusive schools catering for the 13–18 age-range in England and Wales are known as public schools as defined by the Public Schools Act 1868, the term "public" being derived from the fact that they were then open to pupils regardless of where they lived or their religion. Prep (preparatory) schools educate younger children up to the age of 13 to "prepare" them for entry to the public schools and other independent schools. Some former grammar schools converted to an independent fee-paying model following the 1965 Circular 10/65 which marked the end of their state funding; others converted into comprehensive schools.
Education in England is overseen by the United Kingdom's Department for Education. Local government authorities are responsible for implementing policy for public education and state-funded schools at a local level.
The Tripartite System was the arrangement of state-funded secondary education between 1945 and the 1970s in England and Wales, and from 1947 to 2009 in Northern Ireland. It was an administrative implementation of the Education Act 1944 and the Education Act 1947.
Education in Northern Ireland differs from systems used elsewhere in the United Kingdom, although it is relatively similar to Wales. A child's age on 1 July determines the point of entry into the relevant stage of education, unlike England and Wales where it is 1 September. Northern Ireland's results at GCSE and A-Level are consistently top in the UK. At A-Level and BTEC level 3, one third of students in Northern Ireland achieved A and distinction grades in 2007, which is a higher proportion than in England and Wales.
A comprehensive school is a school type, principally in the United Kingdom; it is a school for secondary aged children, that does not select its intake on the basis of academic achievement or aptitude, in contrast to the selective school system, where admission is restricted on the basis of selection criteria. The term is commonly used in relation to England and Wales, where comprehensive schools were introduced as state schools on an experimental basis in the 1940s and became more widespread from 1965. With the Blair educational reforms from 2003, they may be part of a local education authority or be a self governing academy or part of a multi-academy trust.
A secondary modern school is a type of secondary school that existed throughout England, Wales and Northern Ireland from 1944 until the 1970s under the Tripartite System. Schools of this type continue in Northern Ireland, where they are usually referred to as secondary schools, and in areas of England, such as Buckinghamshire, Lincolnshire and Wirral,(where they are called high schools).
The grammar schools debate is a debate about the merits and demerits of the existence of grammar schools in the United Kingdom. Grammar schools are state schools which select their pupils on the basis of academic ability, with pupils sitting an exam in the last year of primary school to determine whether or not they gain a place. The debate on selective education has been widened by measures which allow a proportion of students to be chosen based on their "aptitude" for a particular subject.
A selective school is a school that admits students on the basis of some sort of selection criteria, usually academic. The term may have different connotations in different systems and is the opposite is a comprehensive school, which accepts all students, regardless of aptitude.
Esher College is an open access, non-selective sixth form college located in Thames Ditton, Surrey, England.
Lincolnshire is one of the few counties within the UK that still uses the eleven-plus to decide who may attend grammar school, in common with Buckinghamshire and Kent.
Worcester Sixth Form College is a Sixth form college in Worcester, England. It is located in the south-east of the city and was founded on the site of the former Worcester Grammar School for Girls following reorganisation in 1983.
In England, a partially selective school is one of a few dozen state-funded secondary schools that select a proportion of their intake by ability or aptitude, permitted as a continuation of arrangements that existed prior to 1997.
Though treated together by current legislation, they are of two types: bilateral schools in remnants of the Tripartite System, and former grant-maintained schools that introduced partial selection in the 1990s.
While technically classified as comprehensive schools, they occupy a middle ground between grammar schools and true comprehensives, and many of the arguments for and against grammar schools also apply to these schools.
Although there are relatively few schools of this type, several of them score very highly in national performance tables, and are among the most over-subscribed schools in the country.
The history of education in England is documented from Saxon settlement of England, and the setting up of the first cathedral schools in 597 and 604.
The Dickson Plan is a school transfer system implemented in North County Armagh in Northern Ireland. It is a two tier system in which the majority of pupils in the Craigavon Borough Council Area and parts of Armagh City and District Council Area attend Junior High Schools for 3 years before transferring to Senior High Schools to complete their compulsory education in Key Stage 4. It does not exclude the possibility of academic selection at age 11 through the 11 Plus exam, whereupon pupils may proceed to the grammar school system on completion of primary education or carry on to other secondary schools. For those who opt out of the 11 Plus or don't pass it, they may go through an academic selection process at age 14 by taking internal exams that are set by the individual grammar schools, and entering the grammar sector at age 14.
A direct grant grammar school was a type of selective secondary school in England and Wales that existed between 1945 and 1976. One quarter of the places in these schools were directly funded by central government, while the remainder attracted fees, some paid by the Local Education Authority and some by private pupils. On average, the schools received just over half of their income from the state.
Circular 10/70 was an attempt by Margaret Thatcher as Secretary of State for Education and Science in 1970 to reverse the effects of Circular 10/65 and Circular 10/66.
English state-funded schools provide education to pupils between the ages of 3 and 18 without charge. Approximately 93% of English schoolchildren attend approximately 20,000 such schools. Since 2008 about 75% of these schools have attained "academy status", which essentially gives them more budget per pupil from the Department for Education. There are a number of categories of English state-funded schools including academy schools, community schools, faith schools, foundation schools, free schools ; a small number of state boarding schools, and City Technology Colleges. Of the 15 City Technology Colleges established in the 1980s, only three still remain, with the rest having converted to academy schools). In 2011, about 7,000 of English state-funded schools were faith schools; ie. affiliated with religious groups, most often from the Church of England, or the Roman Catholic Church. There were 42 Jewish, 12 Muslim, 3 Sikh and 1 Hindu faith schools. These faith schools include sub-categories such as faith-academy schools, voluntary aided schools, and voluntary controlled schools: most voluntary controlled schools are faith schools.
In England and Wales, a comprehensive school is a type of secondary school that does not select its intake on the basis of academic achievement or aptitude or the wealth of the parents of the children it accepts.
