Heads defend schools as ballot approaches

GRAMMAR school head teachers in Dover and Sandwich are defending their schools as Kent prepares for a ballot on the future of the selection system.

Neil Slater, head at Dover Boys' Grammar School, said he was particularly concerned about the cost and disruption such changes would cause.

"Any re-organisation will result in huge expense, and the costs could be better spent on supporting all schools," he said.

"It is a very unwelcome distraction away from raising standards at all the very good high schools and grammar schools in the district. Dover Boys' Grammar and Dover Girls' Grammar schools and Sir Roger Manwood's School in Sandwich are three of the 160 remaining grammar schools in the UK threatened with abolition if parents get the opportunity to vote on their future this month.

Governors at the boys' grammar school, which has been attracting increasing numbers of pupils since becoming grant maintained five years ago, are meeting next Wednesday to decide which new school category to apply for.

Education secretary David Blunkett is a fierce opponent of selective schooling and is heading a campaign to remove the 11-plus exam from the primary school timetable.

But Government legislation requires 20 per cent of parents in an area to petition Westminster before a vote on ending selection can take place.

Christopher Morgan, head teacher at Sir Roger Manwood's School, said: "The way the apparatus has been set up suggests that Tony Blair does not want the ballot to go ahead. He sends his own son to a selective school.

"Sir Roger Manwood's and Sandwich Technology School in Sandwich are already oversubscribed which suggests we are doing a good job. We have the ability to specialise on behalf of our children, be it in academic studies or technological and vocationally orientated. It is attractive to parents.

"The saddest thing is that this reorganisation will be an incredible drain on the capital resources when the money would be best spent being put into schools for the benefit of the children," he said.

"Amalgamation would mean large, impersonal schools and the uncertainty will lead good teachers to leave and look for stability.

"What we need to do is raise the status of all schools and concentrate on raising standards so we offer parents a choice of good schools.

"That is what they want.

"I have children of my own at primary school and I am not relishing the thought of them going into a school system in flux and change.

"Our priority should be doing the best by our children.

"Competition is a part of life that we cannot protect our children from. It's part of growing up," said Mr Morgan.

In a telephone poll organised by the Mercury's sister paper Kent Today last week, parents voted overwhelmingly against scrapping grammar schools in favour of comprehensive education.

More than 3,360 grammar school supporters called to say selective education should stay in Kent. Only 118 rang to say it should go.