‘Biased 11-plus is no reflection of ability’
Analysis of the 11-plus tests sat by thousands of children each year in Kent has found that they favour highly tutored or private school pupils
Tests for grammar schools are “loaded dice” that do not reflect ability, an influential report says today.
Detailed analysis of the 11-plus tests sat by thousands of children each year in Kent, the area with the most grammars, has found that they favour highly tutored or private school pupils.
Bright children from disadvantaged backgrounds do particularly badly in reasoning papers because it is often the first time they have come across such questions.
Kent bans its state primary schools from preparing pupils for the test, handing an advantage to children who are privately educated or tutored.
See also: Explaining Prep Schools
Boarding schools should be forced to report child abuse following John Smyth scandal
Boarding schools should be forced to report child abuse, a leading headmaster has said, following revelations that Winchester College students had suffered horrific beatings during summer holidays at the hands of John Smyth, a leading QC, in the 1970s.
Leo Winkley, the chair of the Boarding School Association (BSA) has urged the Government to make the mandatory reporting of abuse a legal duty for all teachers and youth club workers.
Addressing headteachers at the BSA annual conference, he said that institutions must “face up to the failures of the past” adding that there have been “too many times when our schools have failed to keep children safe”.
Mr Winkley urged the Government “to introduce the duty of Mandatory Reporting for all working in regulated activities, such as schools, youth clubs and hospitals, and for those individuals reporting abuse to be protected under law.”
He told headteachers at the conference: “On behalf of the sector, I would like to apologise unequivocally and unreservedly to all survivors of child abuse in boarding schools.
“Our schools failed you - and we are working tirelessly to ensure that the failures of the past are never repeated.”
See also:Boarding Schools