On Schools

 Free schools are back on the agenda this week, with Cameron calling their critics 'defenders of failure'. For me free schools are a terrible idea because;
-allow more religious nutters to make schools like the "Everyday champions" school (shudders) and thus corrupt the minds of our younglings
-are innately middle class. Poorer parents are less likely to give a damn and thus most free schools will be set up by middle class parents, who will engineer ways in which to defraud more common pupils from entry, via area selection, or esoteric subjects like Latin. Infamously, Toby Young (Simon Pegg's character in "How to lose friends and alienate people) wants to set one up and wants to introduce Latin. I fail to see why any child should do Latin in the 2010s, unless of course you are a yuppie sycophant. Beggars belief.



Schools are a classic case of NIMBYism. Some people will loudly advocate the idealism behind comprehensives, that every child has an equal opportunity at such schools, yet then will send their own children to selective schools as they fear for them at ordinary comprehensives. Indeed, many so called 'leftists' have done so, such as Diane Abbott. Most middle class liberal parents will also do the same, and frankly, im glad my parents encouraged me to choose a grammar school, over the local comp.

  Problem is selective schools are hardly the answer either. Religious and private schools are purely randomly based on essentially innate background characteristics and hence not meritocractic. As I said before these should be banned. Grammar schools do work of course, but they can also be unfair. The 11+, used to decide who goes to grammar schools is frankly complete and utter bullshit. It has a section called 'non-verbal' reasoning in which candidates essentially have to find patterns in shapes. Never before and never since in my education, in any subject, did i have to utilise this 'skill', as an educational indicator its about as relevant as an internet IQ test, ie not very, unless you pass and use it as infalliable proof of your eternal greatness. Though the English and Maths sections are more pertinent, it is only a snapshot of pupil ability at years 7 or 9 and only in a handful of subjects. Essentially the 11+ is another money test, to see if you can afford the tutors to coach the kids into shape. Not fair.

Therefore, I feel the solution lies in more open grammar schools. Perhaps, you could make massive comps where everyone went, with 2 tiers of school, one to serve the more academic and studious pupils and one for those who want a more vocational path or dont want to learn (as these twats cause most of the problems in schools). Pupils could switch between the schools at any time in their school career, based on choice, or if the teacher thinks they are working hard enough/not enough. This avoids the danger of dividing pupils too soon or too late. When I was in year 9 I got pretty bad reports as i always tried and failed to be funny. In year 13 i got A* A* A in my A levels. Go figure.