With its focus on debates around the role of selection in secondary education, this collection of essays will make for interesting reading for policy makers and other educational professionals keen to examine the role of education in society.
The ins and outs of selective secondary schools: a debate
Synopsis
The ins and outs of selective secondary schools: a debate gathers a diverse range of key thinkers to evaluate the modern scope of secondary school selection in all its evolving complexity, including by ability, fee, faith and stealth.
With authors including head teachers, politicians, academics, campaigners and commentators, this book incorporates a rich mix of practitioners’ testimony, research evidence on educational outcomes and analysis of consecutive governments’ policy, to scrutinise practice as much as principle, and to tackle both the contentious theory and realities of selection.
In determining whether there is such a thing as ‘the right school for the right child’, the authors address whether we can promote social mobility without hiving off sections of society; who exactly selective secondary schools serve; and whether a system without selection is actually achievable, given the emergence of covert selection via the housing market.
Setting these issues within the context of today’s educational and socio-economic landscape, The ins and outs of selective secondary schools guides the reader towards the bigger debate behind selection: the dilemmas we face as a society in determining what it is we want to achieve through education.