Comment on Report claiming 'The 11-plus is a loaded dice'

The Report purports to make proposals to increase the proportion of children on Free School Meals being identified as suitable for grammar school, although this should surely have been indicated in the title, and some of its ideas would have precisely the opposite result. The central proposal of change to achieve this, by changing the assessment process for suitability to grammar school, would actually introduce an additional and unnecessary unfairness for all children into the process, and remove the current requirement for children to reach an appropriate standard in English and maths.

Kent County Council produced a highly regarded Report last year prepared by a Select Committee of KCC on 'Social Mobility and Grammar Schools' (SMGS) published last year, which contains a range of excellent Recommendations that have been adopted in full by the Council and are currently being worked through. These Recommendations in my view offer a far more rational way forward than the mixed bag contained here, although oddly the EDL Report contains no reference to them. However, as I can see no chance of the EDL Report being adopted for the reasons below, I am disappointed it has gained such publicity.

The BBC article highlights the statement that 12% of Free School Meals children passed the Kent Test in 2015 when compared with 30% of their better off classmates. Cleverly, the Report omits the important qualification 'of those children who took the test', rather than using data for all children in the age group, which exaggerates the differential, for in the 2015 Test, the one being 'analysed', just 20.0% of all Kent children in the age group passed the test as my analysis at the time shows. It is a false, misleading and irrelevant comparison as it takes no account of the relative abilities of the two groups of children, nor of the make up and proportions of the sub-groups who chose to apply for the Test. Instead, I look at an appropriate measure of success at gaining grammar school places for children on Free School Meals (FSM) below, taken from SMGS, and comparing children with similar abilities, which is important OBJECTIVE evidence and so should surely have been quoted in the Report but was not.

The Report makes great play about the unfairness of some children with an aggregate score of 320 not getting a grammar school place as they have failed to show grammar school ability in one or more elements. Quite correct; that is the point of setting a minimum standard in each subject to ensure grammar school entrants have an appropriate background across the board and so able to meet the wide academic demands of the education offered in grammar schools. The conclusion about the Kent Test that: “The test is identifying children who are (highly able) all-rounders, then, rather than children with particular aptitude in only one or two areas” is clearly meant as a criticism, but is indeed at least partially correct, although I have seen many children in the second category with basic skills across the board awarded grammar school places, so is false in that respect.  

HTA takes into account: children’s work; a piece of written English completed at the same time as the Kent Test; a reference from the Primary Headteacher; and the marks in the Kent Test. Most importantly it can also be used for the school’s headteacher to explain personal circumstances that have played a part in underperformance, which can feature any element of disadvantage. It therefore allows a second chance for those who may have underperformed in the Kent Test and for disadvantaged children. Instead the Report proposes replacing this by lowering the pass mark, which of course simply has the effect of re-introducing this same rightly hated ‘one chance only’ effect for a different group of children.  

The EDL Report acknowledges that HTA is biased in favour of children on Free School Meals showing that it does work for disadvantaged children, but then criticises it because it delivers insufficient numbers, so it is unclear why it wishes to abolish it. Surely, on this basis, the way forward would be to extend HTA. The Report quite rightly criticises some primary school headteachers for failing to offer appropriate support to children who ought to be put forward for HTAs, perhaps like KEN because they do not believe in the selective system. However, it is clear that selection in Kent is here to stay for many years and headteachers have a responsibility for ensuring the best for their pupils. I have worked with too many families where primary headteachers have failed their pupils in this way to be blasé about this problem. The solution is surely to challenge such schools by those in authority to ensure they make the system works effectively, not undermine it. Indeed, the SMGS identifies work with primary schools as a priority. This includes amongst the 15 sensible recommendations: “Urge all Primary Headteachers to utilise Headteacher Assessment Panels within the Kent Test process to advocate for those most academically able children supported by the Pupil Premium”, along with powers to do so. You will find my own comments here.   

The section concludes with a proposed surrealistic outcome for parents, whereby instead of the straightforward pass/fail decision they are provided with at present, they will receive a report from KCC with: ‘alongside the letter stating whether the child had passed the 11-plus, parents are given an additional piece of information – the probability that they have been misclassified by the test’, still obsessing about correctness. I just don’t get this, although the Report talks about a concept called Classification accuracy. The information might include, as per the examples given: ‘one parent might be told their child had passed, and yet the probability she should, in fact, have failed was 39%. Another would be told their child has failed, but the probability he should have passed was 47%’. Quite what the point of this is I cannot see, I don’t believe in it in this context, and what parents are supposed to make of it is completely beyond me. Subsequent school appeals take many important factors into account, and I really cannot visualise this one being of any conceivable interest to Panels.

‘It’s also worth noting that passing the 11-plus is not enough alone to gain entry to any grammar school of choice’. Of courseit is not! The outcome with regard to places is no different for the rules for any oversubscribed school of any type, so why suggest it is different and of interest unless one is showing bias, but succeeding in further discrediting the Report.  

Given that the New Grammar School policy now looks likely to come to fruition with a Conservative victory in the forthcoming election (I have grave reservations about the policy), I presume this analysis is ostensibly designed to advise the new institutions on the way forward. However, it is clear they will be of a different character to our present grammar schools with a built-in commitment to supporting disadvantaged children, so little here will apply. Kent is a county with grammar schools operating a single base system of admission, although there are a variety of add-on differences. This is not transferable to individual institutions with individual selection processes operating to the new rules within a comprehensive school set-up. However, it may serve to warn those institutions of the perils of its recommendations. Finally, I consider the analysis is far too flawed, with too many false conclusions and errors to be useful. In practice it is clear there is a different agenda. 

I can see that it has whipped up considerable anti-grammar school feeling in parts of the media which may well have been its aim. Typical is the report in The Times, which claims amongst other misinterpretations that: ‘Only children doing exceptionally well in all three papers will be given a place at grammar schools’, which is clearly a nonsense.  I make no judgment about the rights or wrongs of the selective system here, I have simply looked at the facts.

I operate alone and part-time, producing this in short time, in order to respond to the issues raised, but I accept to late to influence them. As a result, I also accept that I may well have made errors myself in this analysis, and if so am happy to correct them.