The Prime Minister and others seem to have attempted to make the phrase “comprehensive school” derogatory. Why is there this apparent hatred in England for a system which is (almost) universal in Scotland and which has the overwhelming vote of the Scottish people in the national debate on education?
The Conservatives suggest that parents should start their own school using a system of their choice and presumably not comprehensive.
Following this type of comment during the party conference season, it is perhaps natural that my thoughts turn to something said about 15 years ago by an education adviser: “Kilsyth Academy is the most comprehensive school I know.”
I was then, and I still am, proud of being the headteacher of a comprehensive, comprehensive school.
On a recent visit to relatives in London, we had dinner with friends who had sent their sons to a highly selective, independent school. Our hostess also worked part-time in a highly selective, independent girls’ boarding school. Imagine my amazement when the lady started to argue strongly against the English selective system and expressed her preference for fully comprehensive arrangements “like your Scottish system”.
My wife, always the diplomat, then asked her why, if she felt that way, she worked in the independent sector. Her husband replied succinctly for her:
“Money!”
We take in pupils from a former mining town, a mining village with no miners left, a small rural village and two larger villages with a high proportion of fairly new owner-occupied houses as well as more traditional council housing. We have a wide range of affluence and poverty, of parental support and apathy, of academic success and failure and of physical fitness and disability.
We are proud of this mixed intake. Some of our pupils are easy to teach, while some are extremely difficult. I am delighted that my staff, teaching and non-teaching, make every effort to treat each child equally and to give equality of opportunity to all.
There are limits, of course.
Maggie is in S4 and has a younger sibling in the school. She is late most days, arriving around 11am or later, and truants often. Her father is not coping with her at home. She smokes and drinks and there are suspicions of drug taking. She has a 19-year-old boyfriend. Her mother lives elsewhere in the village and provides a haven for her truanting children.
Maggie has been excluded several times for a range of offences including swearing, fighting, insolence, setting off the fire alarm and theft. She fails to complete punishment exercises or detention.
She and our attendance officer know each other very well. She has been at several unsuccessful meetings of the school attendance council. She has been seen by the children’s panel and has a social work supervision order.
She has had a medical examination. She has been referred to the school psychologist. Her guidance teacher has had many fruitless interviews with her.
She is falling behind in her Standard grade work because of her poor attendance rather than her ability. She will be invited to mentoring sessions later in the year to help her with work but will probably fail to attend. She does not attend supported study.
If Kilsyth Academy was a highly selective school, whether by postcode or parental choice, Maggie would not be our problem. She would be attending, or failing to attend, the “bog standard comprehensive” down the road. We accept that she is our problem and that we are failing despite every effort to develop in her the skills she will need to be a successful member of society.
I wonder if she would have been more successful in a highly selective girls’ boarding school.
John Mitchell is headteacher of Kilsyth Academy, North LanarkshireIf you would like to comment, e-mail scotlandplus@tes.co.ukNext week: Sheilah Jackson, head of Queensferry Primary, Edinburgh
