ABSTRACT
The selective system of education is often condemned on the ground that a child's failure to obtain a Grammar School place creates for him a general sense of having failed which prevents him from fulfilling his potential. That many children who failed the ‘11 + ’ recovered from any sense of failure they may have once had is clear from the achievements of those in Secondary Modern Schools who achieved as much as, if not in some cases more than, some who passed the examination and went to Grammar Schools. There are, nevertheless, good reasons for disapproving of selection at 11 plus.
