Raising Education Achievement and Breaking the Cycle of Inequality in the United Kingdom

Since 1997 the Labour government's policy has been to allow grammar schools to continue but for no more such schools to be introduced. The same applied to schools that selected part of their intake by attainment. At the same time the specialist school programme has been greatly expanded and these schools have been allowed to select up to 10% of their intake on the basis of aptitude in a specialist subject. There has been considerable debate about whether selection by aptitude is significantly distinct from selection by attainment (Education and Skills Select Committee 2004;West and Hind 2003). In 2000 (Flatley et al 2001) and 2001 (West and Hind 2003) reasonable estimates were made of the number of schools selecting by aptitude but none since the expansion of the numbers of specialist schools. Behind these debates is the concern that both kinds of selection are unjust and lead to greater educational and social inequality. This paper reports on the results of a study of the admission arrangements for all secondary schools in England in 2006 together with a nationally representative survey of parents who had applied for a secondary school place for September 2006. It provides an update on the admission arrangements of all maintained secondary schools that select all or part of their intake by attainment/ability or aptitude. The paper reports on how many schools in England selected by attainment in 2006 and the proportions of children within each Local Authority so selected. It reveals that in the most highly selective authorities the proportions range from 19% to 39% and that some are affecting the intakes not only of the population in their Local Authority but also substantially in that of neighbouring authorities. The first comprehensive analysis is made of all schools that select part of their intake by attainment. Also, prior to this study we only had out of date estimates of the proportion of schools that select by aptitude. This study presents an up to date count of these schools, the methods they use for testing and the proportions of their intakes selected. The debate concerning the similarity between selection by aptitude and by attainment is critically reviewed and it is argued that they differ significantly in the social narrative they support but are similar in their contribution to social segregation.

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Raising Education Achievement and Breaking the Cycle of Inequality in the United Kingdom

Cited by 4 publications

References 12 publications

Patterns of Conflict in Education: France, Italy, England

Patterns of Conflict in Education: France, Italy, England

‘We never get a fair chance’: Working-Class Experiences of Education in the Twenty-First Century

Selection by Attainment and Aptitude in English Secondary Schools

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