The majority wanted to maintain the status quo

Can I respectfully suggest the new States now engage and listen. Joe Public were asked their opinion four years ago on the future of education. When over 60% stated their wish to retain the status quo, they were ignored. Proposals were bullied through, including of course abolishing the 11-plus. This has been a strident minority’s wish for generations.

To ensure it could never be resurrected, the process of shutting down the Grammar School was started without delay. Then came the two-school fiasco which defied common sense and proposed doubling the intake of two schools by squeezing all secondary school pupils into them.

St Sampson’s has had discipline problems since it opened. How could adding another few hundred children and sticking them in new uniforms help? No wonder teachers are leaving. It’s nothing to do with uncertainty, it’s to do with the actuality and the proposed Armageddon.

The present Education committee has continued blindly on with their dream, most sensible folks’ nightmare. Not enough space? We’ll build, buy some more land, more buildings, spend more money. Not enough parking? We’ll buy more buses and anyway, they can cycle, walk, whatever. Nowhere to eat? Children can eat in shifts. Nowhere for private study? That can also take place in the canteen between lunch shifts... and so it goes on.

Meanwhile, perfectly appointed buildings with all facilities will be mothballed.

Schools are not factories where offering a range of subjects at an economic rate should be other than important items to be taken into consideration. All today’s students have access to the internet. Anyone wishing to study any subject, from Japanese to nuclear science, is able to do so. Schools, even expensive private ones, cannot cover every subject.

I despair that, in the name of equality of opportunity, children are denied their right to shine at whatever they’re good at.

Not everyone is academic. It’s a fact. Not everyone can sing, is good with their hands, sport, musically talented. The 11-plus was always just a selection process. It was not compulsory. In some primary schools half of the children didn’t sit it. Imagine feeling a failure for not being selected for a football team if you hadn’t even put yourself forward? As for those who sat the exams and didn’t succeed, welcome to the real world. Disappointment is a part of life and should be a challenge. The Sixth Form College and College of FE in any event provided the opportunity for all to pursue their dream.

Guess what? The system wasn’t perfect. (How anyone can complain about being only slightly better than the UK, I fail to understand.) The two-school option was an extremely expensive idea and, guess what, it wouldn’t be perfect either.

Finally, I find it hypocritical that so many, in and out of the States, who supported ‘moving on’ with education in the direction it has stumbled are people who would not conceive of their children or grandchildren going through any, or indeed the proposed, comprehensive route. If it’s not good enough for them and theirs, why should it be good enough for anyone?

NAME AND ADDRESS WITHHELD.