If you really believe that 'every child matters', then... it's time to end the 11-plus

Twelve strangers in a room for just one hour and a half – with such a complex subject – impossible.

But the exercise was not a complete waste of my time.

What I did learn in one of the (apparently) better-attended sessions was how wide the rift is between those who want to preserve the status quo (11-plus/Grammar School/college funding) and those who believe – possibly because they have personal experience of it – that the Guernsey selective secondary education system is way past its sell-by date.

Now I have to admit that I was very much in favour of retaining the 'status quo' 14 years ago. But while there was already a ground-swell of realisation of change back then, a late (compromise) amendment saved the day for the traditionalists and so a path of providing the same quality facilities found at the Grammar School to the other 'secondary moderns' was established.

But here we are almost a generation later and we have still not achieved that objective.

The big problem is that the current consultation is the result of a lack of money to build the final school/piece of the jigsaw – not a desire to give equality of opportunity to all our children.

Why have we got this so wrong?

Let me declare my interests. I passed the 11-plus to Elizabeth College over 50 years ago and am still an OE to this day. My late wife followed a similar route via the Grammar School system in the UK and ended her days still teaching in the Guernsey Grammar School, where she had spent 20 enjoyable years. On the way there she taught in a variety of UK and Guernsey schools including comprehensives and 'secondary moderns'. My two grown-up children have flourished – one through the 11-plus/Grammar School route and the other through our local secondary modern school, as a fee payer to Blanchelande and then the CoFE. They are both well-balanced and successful.

So I believe that I have an educated and objective view of the system in the island, I can see the value of all the different facets and I have no axes to grind.

I would have liked to report that the vast majority of those I met at the focus group shared that open-mindedness.

But most saw the current status quo as in need of retention because they/their children have benefited from it and therefore believe that it should be retained for others to also benefit.

They did not seem to have an appreciation of the 75% of our children who are disadvantaged by it.

Today we live in a society where we demand equality in all facets of our life. So isn't it now the time for equality in education? A system which favours just a quarter of our children cannot be fair.

A system that causes late developers to have fewer opportunities cannot be fair.

A system that prevents all children accessing the best teachers across a complete range of subjects cannot be fair.

A system where an ability to pay for extra tuition to 'pass' a test cannot be fair.

We no longer tolerate discrimination in society, be it gender, sexual orientation, race, age, religion etc. But it seems that there are still people who can deny there is any inequality of educational opportunity for some of our children. There are still people who say that because there are some who are successful despite the current 'selective' education system that we should leave it well alone.

Fourteen years ago, it was a similar argument that derailed the same debate in the States.

The supporters of the 11-plus were organised and carried some influential voices – particularly the staff and management of the Grammar School – of which my wife (supported by myself) was one.

But much has changed since then and today I believe that she would not have been prepared to defend the inequality. She would have said that the time has come to give equal opportunity to all our children – because 'every child matters'.

The States debate in March should not be about whether or not we rebuild La Mare de Carteret High School.

Let us decide to end the inequality first and then – and only then – decide whether we need a new school or whether extensions to Beaucamps, St Sampson's and the Grammar School site to make three large comprehensives will be best to achieve that objective.

As Arlo Guthrie sang a long, long time ago in his anti-Vietnam anthem – Alice's Restaurant (with apologies) – 'If one person comes… he will be considered mad. If two come… they will be considered strange. But if 50 people, yes, 50 people come… then they may think it's a movement – the Alice's Restaurant anti-massacre movement.'

So if more than 50 people contact me then we may have the beginnings of our own movement – the 'Every child matters anti-11-plus movement'.

Please email me today to show your support and if there is enough we will show the rest of Guernsey that the States debate in March should not be about whether to build a new school or not – but what it is really about is that 'every child matters' and finally ending the educational inequality of the 11-plus.

RICHARD BRACHE,

rbrache@guernsey.net