ABSTRACT
British secondary education since the mid-1970s has been largely based on comprehensive schools that are intended to provide for children of all abilities. In purpose and function they appear to stand in stark contrast to the system we described in the previous two chapters that primarily focused on the identification of a relatively small group of academically able students with the ability to benefit from the superior resourcing of a selective grammar school education, while the great majority were allocated to secondary modern schools and limited prospects in the labour market. The scope of the change over the past 40 years has been considerable, though uneven in pace and coverage across the four British ‘home nations’. In Wales and Scotland today there are no grammar schools and the feepaying sector is very small. Approximately 95 per cent of secondary school students in Scotland and over 98 per cent of their counterparts in Wales are in comprehensives. In England in 2003 (DfES, 2003) 4 per cent of secondary age students attended the remaining 163 grammar schools and about 9 per cent were enrolled in fee-paying schools so that, at face value, 87 per cent of students in England attended comprehensive schools. Alternatively, we might say that only about one-third of the proportion of the age group who were in overtly selective schools in the 1960s now attend them. However, as we shall see, there were and are considerable intake differences between comprehensive schools. In contrast Northern Ireland retains selective education, based largely on a system of sectarian grammar and state comprehensive schools.
