The Eleven Plus
Evening Standard
Charlotte Bronte’s novel Jane Eyre features Mrs Rochester; the mad ex-wife in the attic who inspires fear and revulsion in equal measure and no-one dares talk about. The eleven plus is the Mrs Rochester of polite educational debate. Tony Blair, desperate to distance himself from David Cameron, accused him of wanting to “bring back the eleven plus”. Cameron recoiled in horror and could not deny it fast enough. When John Prescott criticises the education white paper by calling it a “return to the eleven plus”, it is the deadliest of insults. But the eleven plus examination may have been a fairer system than the shambles over secondary school admission that many London parents face today.
With the eleven plus there was no pretence about parental choice and it had the virtue of complete transparency. There was just one exam, everyone knew about it and everybody sat it. By contrast the current system is a labyrinth. Desperate parents try every type of scam; from buying a house in the catchment area of a good school to simply giving a phoney address. Most of these stratagems are unavailable to working class or black and minority ethnic parents. They do not have the information, the confidence or the money for half million pound mortgages, music lessons or private tuition. Worst of all, instead of sitting one exam, children may have to do four or five different tests and interviews in order to get into a desirable non fee-paying school.
The eleven plus also had the merit of limiting the scope for entirely subjective judgements about a child and their family. I was a chaotic child. My actual school work was erratic and my teachers thought I was trouble. Yet I always rose to the challenge of examinations. But what sensible secondary head, faced at interview with me and me manual worker mum and dad, would have chosen me? If my academic career had been determined by coursework and teacher assessment, I would have been lucky to have emerged as a manageress at Woolworths. Instead, my performance in competitive exams eventually took me to Cambridge University.
In reality there can be no going back to the eleven plus. But let us not pretend that the current system in London is any fairer to working class children. Research reveals that there is less social mobility now, than there was in the heyday of the eleven plus and the grammar school. And the proposals in the government’s white paper may make matters worse. Ministers say proudly that “there will be no return to academic selection” But selection by interview is much more pernicious. I often meet black schoolgirls in Hackney who remind me of my teenage self. Competitive exams at eleven are a terrible thing. But, at least they provided a ladder out for me. For too many of our children in too many of our communities the current system provides no way out at all.
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