Comp-Ed scheme explained

Before they went home for the summer holidays, all Waltham Forest schoolchildren were this week handed copies of a yellow booklet detailing the comprehensive education scheme planned for the borough.

Prepared in question and answer form, the booklet should settle the minds of the many mums and dads who view the educational future of their children with some trepidation.

The No. 1 question inevitably is "Why is reorganisation on comprehensive lines, considered by the council to be desirable?"
The answer is a simple and expected one: The 11-plus examination is no longer an effective method of sorting the clever from the not so clever, nor is the separation of children into different type of schools considered desirable in an increasingly classless society.

What then are the Waltham Forest proposals?
At the age of 11 the primary school children will move to a junior secondary school until the age of 14.

Doesn't this mean that some children might be in the senior secondary school only one year?
No, the scheme will not come fully into operation until the school leaving age has been raised to 16.
Advantages

What are the advantages claimed for the system?
Both junior and senior schools gain by having a smaller age range. The junior secondary school becomes attuned to the interests of the 11 to 14 child, while the upper school can develop into a much more mature type of community.

Wouldn't 13 be a better age, since it would give the upper school more time to prepare for school exams?
Certainly it would give the upper school more time, but at the cost of giving the junior secondary school less. The council feels that so long as the transition from primary to secondary is at the age of 11, the junior secondary course should not be shorter than three years.

Why Rejection?

Why did the council reject the all-through comprehensive school of 11 - 18?
All the existing school buildings in Waltham Forest are too small to be used as such schools without a vast amount of rebuilding. To adopt such a scheme would have meant postponing the introduction.

Will all new secondary schools be coeducational?
No. The council will not change the present balance of single-sex and co-educational secondary schools. Both have their different merits.

Won't the standard of work in primary schools suffer from the lack of an 11-plus exam?
On the contrary the 11-plus is not an incentive. It is a brake on the development of the primary school.