Partially Selective School (England)
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In England, a partially selective school is one of a few dozen state-funded secondary schools that select a proportion of their intake by ability or aptitude, permitted as a continuation of arrangements that existed prior to 1997. Though treated together by current legislation, they are of two types: bilateral schools in remnants of the
Tripartite System The Tripartite System was the arrangement of state-funded secondary education between 1945 and the 1970s in England and Wales, and from 1947 to 2009 in Northern Ireland. It was an administrative implementation of the Education Act 1944 and th ...
, and former grant-maintained schools that introduced partial selection in the 1990s. While technically classified as
comprehensive schools A comprehensive school typically describes a secondary school for pupils aged approximately 11–18, that does not select its intake on the basis of academic achievement or aptitude, in contrast to a selective school system where admission is re ...
, they occupy a middle ground between
grammar schools A grammar school is one of several different types of school in the history of education in the United Kingdom and other English-speaking countries, originally a school teaching Latin, but more recently an academically oriented secondary school, ...
and true comprehensives, and many of the arguments for and against grammar schools also apply to these schools. Although there are relatively few schools of this type, several of them score very highly in national performance tables, and are among the most over-subscribed schools in the country. There are no partially selective schools in Scotland and Wales, which have wholly comprehensive systems, while Northern Ireland retains a grammar system.


History

Partially selective schools are of two types: * A bilateral school contains both grammar and non-selective streams, with the two groups of students taught separately. Bilateral schools were originally part of the
Tripartite System The Tripartite System was the arrangement of state-funded secondary education between 1945 and the 1970s in England and Wales, and from 1947 to 2009 in Northern Ireland. It was an administrative implementation of the Education Act 1944 and th ...
in more sparsely populated areas unable to support separate schools. Most of those existing today were established in the 1970s in a few areas retaining the Tripartite System. * Partial selection was introduced in some grant-maintained schools during the final years of the
Conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization i ...
government led by
John Major Sir John Major (born 29 March 1943) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of the Conservative Party from 1990 to 1997, and as Member of Parliament ...
. Grant-maintained status was introduced by the
Education Reform Act 1988 The Education Reform Act 1988 is widely regarded as the most important single piece of education legislation in England and Wales since the 'Butler' Education Act 1944. Provisions The main provisions of the Education Reform Act are as follows: ...
, and gave such schools control over their own admissions. Circular 6/93 permitted these schools to select up to 10% of their intake on the basis of ability or aptitude in music, art, drama or sport. Circular 6/96 permitted more selection. By 1997, over 40 schools were selecting up to 50% of pupils. In 1997 a
Labour Labour or labor may refer to: * Childbirth, the delivery of a baby * Labour (human activity), or work ** Manual labour, physical work ** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer ** Organized labour and the labour ...
government was elected, with a policy of abolishing partial selection.
David Blunkett David Blunkett, Baron Blunkett, (born 6 June 1947) is a British Labour Party politician who has been a Member of the House of Lords since 2015, and previously served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Sheffield Brightside and Hillsborough ...
, then Secretary of State for Education and Employment, said in December 1997: However, the
School Standards and Framework Act 1998 The School Standards and Framework Act 1998 was the major education legislation passed by the incoming Labour government led by Tony Blair. This Act: * imposed a limit of 30 on infant class sizes. * abolished grant-maintained schools, introducin ...
permitted selection of up to 10% by aptitude for certain subjects for which a school is a specialist college (section 102), and also permitted the retention of partial selection that existed prior to the 1997 entry, provided that the proportion selected was no higher than that in 1997 (section 100). The 1998 Act also created schools adjudicators, empowered to rule on objections to school admission arrangements, including partial selection. This mechanism has steadily reduced both the number of schools using selection and the proportion of partial selection at the remaining schools. These schools often also give preference to siblings of current pupils, filling the rest of their places using distance and/or faith criteria. The sibling criterion is particularly controversial, as in combination with selection it often severely limits the number of local children admitted. In response to these concerns, the initial draft of a revised schools admissions code proposed to ban sibling criteria in schools that selected more than 10% on their intake. After many protests, the admissions code as published in February 2007 protected siblings of current students, and permitted schools to give priority to siblings provided that "their admission arrangements as a whole do not exclude families living nearer the school."School Admissions Code
, Department for Education and Skills, February 2007.
This phrasing was removed in the revised Code published in January 2009. A late amendment to the
Education and Inspections Act 2006 The Education and Inspections Act 2006 (c 40) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. According to the government the Act "''is intended to represent a major step forward in the Government’s aim of ensuring that all children in all ...
amended the 1998 Act to limit the proportion selected to the lowest level at any time since 1997. This forced four Hertfordshire schools to lower their proportion of academic selection from 35% to 25%.


Partial selection today

The following bilateral schools continue to operate in surviving fully selective areas:House of Commons Hansard Written Answers for 8 Feb 2006 (pt 7)
, UK Parliament.
To be admitted to the selective stream, applicants must achieve the qualifying standard in an
eleven plus exam The eleven-plus (11+) is a standardized examination administered to some students in England and Northern Ireland in their last year of primary education, which governs admission to grammar schools and other secondary schools which use academi ...
, typically shared with local grammar schools. In practice, some of these schools do not fill their allocation of selective places due to competition from the neighbouring grammar schools. Unlike grammar schools, they are required to fill any remaining places with non-selective applicants. The following schools retain partial selection introduced between 1993 and 1997: All of these schools are over-subscribed. All except Old Swinford Hospital, Archbishop Tenison's School and the London Nautical School select the highest scoring applicants under each criterion.


See also

*
Education in England Education in England is overseen by the United Kingdom's Department for Education. Local government authorities are responsible for implementing policy for public education and state-funded schools at a local level. England also has a tradi ...


References and notes


External links


Office of the Schools Adjudicator
{{schools Education in England State schools in the United Kingdom School types