School selection is under review.

    COUNTY councillors are reviewing the selection procedure for children going to secondary schools.
    The present system is said to be one of the reasons for the drop in the number of pupils going to grammar schools.
    Prospective parents have complained that they don't understand how the procedure works.
    It involves their children being allocated a mark - by computer which they may not even have attained in a countywide test.
    At a consultation meeting into proposed changes in local secondary schools, Nell Mullett, south Kent area education director, said that last year only 22 per cent of pupils leaving Dover primary schools went to grammar schools.
    "A substantial number of parents decided not to send their children to the Dover grammar schools but to grammar schools in other towns," he said.
    Head of modem languages at the Boys' Grammar School, Graham Lodder, said pupils who had been admitted in the past would not have been selected under the current procedure.
    Members of the county's schools sub-committee are due to consider representations to change, the selection procedure at their meeting on, Wednesday, February 27.
    But, it has been revealed that one of the proposals for the new procedure may also work against the grammar schools.
    A consultation document sent to headteachers throughout the county includes a proposal that parents would have to opt into the selection procedure if, they wanted their children to go to a grammar school.
    If patents are content for their children to go to a high or comprehensive -  and at least 80 per cent are expected to make that decision - then their youngsters are not assessed.
    Mr Mullett said that this was apropoea1 and had been put forward "in the interests of the child" so that, they would not have to undergo the "stress" of assessment.
    But, he said, the authority would be carefully considering the headteachers' views before putting the proposal to governors for their deliberations.