ABSTRACT
In October 1968, 4,240 students from comprehensive schools entered university. The C. Benn and B. Simon survey of British comprehensive schools took July 1968 as its dateline. In particular they had included details of sixth form admissions policy—whether the sixth was 'open' or 'closed', and the range of O- and A-Level subjects offered by individual schools. Effectively the project involved two interrelating sets of data—the first on the schools, mainly collected by the Benn and Simon survey, and the second on individual students from particular schools. By dividing schools and students according to the length of time the school had comprehensive status people could also see the effect over time of going comprehensive. The schools show a considerable regional bias when compared to all schools with sixth forms in England and Wales in the Benn and Simon inquiry. In particular, schools from Wales were somewhat overrepresented, whilst those in the North tended to be under-represented.
