Good idea for more grammar schools

DEAR Editor, There is more than a whiff of hypocrisy in the air when you discover that some of the most vociferous opponents to the government’s plans to introduce new grammar schools, themselves attended and benefited from them, including Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, shadow chancellor John McDonnell and shadow health secretary Diane Abbott.

I was not clever enough to pass the 11-plus examination in 1964 (and probably still wouldn’t pass the same exam 52 years later) and consequently went to a secondary modern school in Birmingham.

Nonetheless, I believe that grammar schools have been an engine of meritocratic social mobility for generations of kids from modest backgrounds.

I was genuinely pleased that many of my primary school classmates passed the 11-plus and gained access to a local grammar school.

Many of them, just like me, came from humble working class backgrounds and moved to Northfield from the slums of Ladywood, where we had to use an outside communal toilet and a washtub for bathing.

The kids who passed the 11-plus received no private tuition to place them at an advantage, they were just simply brighter than me.

The lifting of the ban on new selective schools should be welcomed to address the UK’s mediocre educational performance by international comparisons.

The secondary modern school I attended was a rough and ready establishment and the inclusion of those brighter kids who went to a grammar school would have had a deleterious impact on their education – they would have been held back.

This is not a criticism of my old school in Birmingham or the teachers employed there.

That’s just the way it was, and it was up to the kids to give their very best in the hope of passing exams and securing a decent job.

Some opponents of selective education argue that the selection process for grammar schools at the age of 11 is too young.

However, in my time at school, late developers could take another exam when aged 13, and, if successful, would, transfer to a grammar school.

This is not to say that it was all doom and gloom for those of us who were less bright.

I made the maximum of my modest ability to acquire the necessary qualifications for admission to the civil service, where l