The Comprehensive System is a system of education in the United Kingdom and other countries, based on all-ability comprehensive schools. Whilst changes have occurred over the years, the majority of British secondary schools are still officially comprehensive schools. Nearly all primary education in the UK is comprehensive, but the term is usually understood to refer to secondary education.

History

After the Second World War secondary education in England, Wales and Northern Ireland was managed under the Tripartite System. Children took the eleven plus examination in their last year of primary education and were sent to secondary modern, secondary technical or grammar schools, depending on their perceived ability.

Controversy around the eleven plus exam combined with increasing dissatisfaction with the educational experience offered by the secondary modern schools led to experiments with Comprehensive Schools from the early 1950s. These schools were viewed as the natural alternative to the tripartite system, and had already proven successful in Sweden. They had been gradually spreading across the country, from Anglesey to the West Riding. They were strongest, however, in London, where LCC Education Officer Graham Savage had been a powerful advocate.

Implementation

The Labour Party had been in favour of the Comprehensive System since 1957. After the Labour victory in 1964 Anthony Crosland came to the Ministry for Education, and brought with him a fervent desire to reform the secondary education system. He quickly issued Circular 10/65, which requested that all Local Education Authorities begin planning to convert to the comprehensive system.

By 1968 around 20% of children were in comprehensives, and by the mid seventies, the system had been fully implemented. Nearly all new schools were built as comprehensives, and existing grammar and modern schools had either been closed or amalgamated with neighbouring secondary moderns to produce comprehensive schools.

Current status

Comprehensive schools remain the most common type of state secondary school in Britain, and the only type in Scotland and Wales. They account for around 90% of pupils, or 64% if one does not count schools with low-level selection. This figure varies by region.

Since the 1980s the government has experimented with alternatives to the original neighbourhood comprehensive. Since the mid 1990s, following the advice of educationalist Sir Cyril Taylor, both major parties have backed the creation of a specialist schools, which focus on excellence in a particular subject and are theoretically allowed to select up to 10% of their intake. These schools reject the original logic of the neighbourhood comprehensive- that all children will go to their local school- and assume that parents will send their child to the school they feel they are most suited to. Other initiatives include city technology colleges, city academies, federations of schools and partnerships.

These new school types mean that it is open to debate whether the Comprehensive System is still in operation; but many educationalists would argue that the new forms of school are best characterised as developments from, rather than challenges to the Comprehensive System.

Reputation

The comprehensive system has been controversial from its inception, and has suffered repeated attacks on its achievements. For debates about its merits against the system it replaced, see the article on debates about the grammar school. For more information on the development of comprehensive schools, see the main article on that subject.

External links

• Centre for the Study of Comprehensive Schools
• Comprehensive Education - Examining the Evidence Report of 1999 seminar organised by CASE (the Campaign for State Education in the UK).

• http://www.arasite.org/edinandsocmods.html
• http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/2061738.stm

Educational philosophy | Education in the United Kingdom