ABSTRACT
The great hope of the comprehensive movement must be that it will unite the people. In the mid-1950s, segregation-by-testing in the maintained sector, continuing even in parts of Oxfordshire, appeared to parallel the segregation-by-class which was the basis of private education. Exclusiveness was the common feature and crucial tool of both systems, with superior resources, prestige and expectations the reward of the elect. Maintenance of opportunity being the key principle for the comprehensive school, its treatment of new pupils, whether at 11 or later, is crucially important. Educational guidance has the optimistic and developmental role of making sure that pupils take full advantage of the opportunities which are being preserved for them through the common curriculum and the chance to find their own level, subject by subject. The virtues of collaboration and mutual support between schools must be restored to preeminence, and the vice of competitiveness marked down.
