Comprehensive school

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A Comprehensive school is a secondary educational institution that teaches an inclusive range of subjects across the academic and vocational spectrum. The most significant attribute of comphrensive schools is that they do not select students based upon academic aptitude. While comprehensive schools are frequently found across the world, Europe remains one of the few regions that have only recently started to implement more comprehensive schools into their educational infastructure. Many European nations use a mixture of comprehensive and selective based schools, while the England is one of the few to transition to an almost entirely comprehensive structure.

Purpose

Comprehensive schools exist because of the belief that the best way to achieve a well educated public, schools need to be of a large size and to take children of various abilities, in addition to teaching a wide range of subjects. Comprehensive schools share a similar foundation with the Liberal arts movement, in that both are structured off the belief that the best education comes from exposure to a wide array of subjects and disciplines instead of focused study on a particular subject.

History

While comprehensive education is the foundation of all public education in the United States, Canada, Russia and other non-European industrialized regions of the world, comprehensive schools have not been widespread in Europe due to historical administration and theory of education. England was one of the first, and remains the only nation to have a majority of its public schooling be offered through comprehensive schools. Before World War II, only the students that showed the best aptitude to further study and prepare for higher education went on to study secondary education subjects. Those that failed to make the cut often were forced to enter the work-force. The United Kingdom was one of the first parts of Europe to break with this tradition. Before the Second World War, secondary education provision was both patchy and expensive. After the war secondary education in England, Wales and Northern Ireland was provided free to at least the age of 18 and managed under the Tripartite System introduced by Conservative secretary of state for education Rab Butler. Comprehensive schools were introduced as a counter point to the Eleven Plus examination, which students took at the end of primary schools to determine if they would do well in secondary education. While local districts were not forced by law to create comprehensive schools, they were encouraged to do so, and thus two types of schools existed in the United Kingdom for many years hence: traditional and comprehensive.

Early comprehensives modelled themselves firmly on the grammar school, with teachers in gowns and lessons in a very formal style. The opening of the Risinghill Comprehensive School in Islington in 1960 offered an alternative to this model. Embracing the progressive ideals of sixties education, the school abandoned corporal punishment and brought in a much more liberal attitude to discipline.

The largest expansion of Comprehensive schools resulted from a policy decision taken in 1965 by Anthony Crosland, secretary of state for education in the 1964-1970 Labour government, a fervent supporter of Comprehensive education. The policy decision was implemented by Circular 10/65, an instruction to local education authorities to plan for conversion. Over that 10 year period many secondary modern schools and grammar schools were amalgamated to form large neighbourhood comprehensives, whilst a number of new schools were built to accommodate a growing school population. By 1968 around 20% of children had been in comprehensives, and by the mid seventies, the system had been almost 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.

Currently, comprehensive schools remain the most common type of state secondary school in England, and the only type in Wales.

Operation

Comprehensive schools are usually neighborhood schools taking their students from a defined local catchment area. Parents often have an element of choice in choosing a secondary school and it is not uncommon, especially in towns and cities, for students to travel some distance to school. Although comprehensive schools take in all students despite ability, once enrolled in the school student are often grouped by aptitude so as to create clearly defined levels of education. This can sometimes be done through evaluation of past grades or testing. Those who seem better suited to do well may take more advanced courses, while other students may take cirriculums that teach at a slower pace. Some schools now also use streaming to group children by ability in individual subjects as well. There has been a recent trend to designate Comprehensive schools as specializing in particular areas e.g. technology. All comprehensive schools take pupils from the age of 11 to at least 16. Some have a sixth form, entry to which is often on an open basis, with some pupils taking A levels, whilst others follow vocational programs.

Other European Nations

Most European nations beyond England have secondary educational systems that mix selective and comprehensive schools. Below is a brief description of a few of these schools.

France

Secondary education in France is broken up into two different sections: Compulsory education starts at the age of six, when students enter primary school, and ends at the age of 16, usually after completion of Collège. A majority of students go on to attend a Lycée, the second stage of secondary education, but entrance is based upon achievement and successful completion of the collège curriculum. Such success includes an examination, but also the evaluation of a conseil de classe (class council), comprised of teachers, administrators, and fellow students. The lycée prepares the student to pass the baccalauréat (known as le bac); this allows the student to continue to higher education, studies in technology, or directly enter their profession, depending on the type of baccalauréat. Public French universities are required to accept any student who attains the baccalauréat général. However, there are also Grandes écoles, elite higher education establishments which function outside of the public university system, that traditionally have produced France's highest ranking politicians, executives, and scientists. Entrance to these institutions requires classes préparatoires aux grandes écoles, two to three-year courses, often offered by historical, prestigious, and selective lycées.

Germany

Germany has a system similar to France. Secondary education is broken up into schools that students are placed into schools based upon their abilities. Usually the students that attend a Gymnasium (school) school in Germany are the most academically strong students upon leaving primary school. The gymnasium school helps to prepare students to enter a university, and is the most rigorous and prestigious level of secondary education in Germany. Those students who are not qualified to enter gymnasia attend one of the three other types of German secondary schools: Realschule, Hauptschule, or Gesamtschule. These schools are staggered in difficulty and focus, so as to ensure that all students have a place to study.

Republic of Ireland

Comprehensive schools were introduced into the Republic of Ireland in 1966 by an initiative by Patrick Hillery, Minister for Education, to give a broader range of education compared to that of the vocational school system which was then the only system of schools completely controlled by the state. Until this time education in Ireland was largely dominated by religious persuasion, and in particular the voluntary secondary school system was a particular realization of this. The comprehensive school system is still relatively small and to an extent has been superseded by the community school concept.

Sweden

Sweden had used mixed-ability schools for some years before they were introduced into England and Wales, and was chosen as one of the models.

Debate and issues

Supporters of Comprehensive education argue that it is unacceptable on both moral and practical grounds to select or reject children on the basis of their ability. They also argue that comprehensive schools in the UK have allowed millions of children to gain access to further and higher education, and that the previous selective system relegated children who failed the eleven plus examination to a second class and inferior education.

Critics of comprehensive schools argue that the reality has been a leveling down of provision and a denial of opportunity to able children from disadvantaged backgrounds, who might once have expected to pass the eleven plus exam and have the advantage of a grammar school education. The most straightforward way for parents to ensure that their children attend what is perceived to be a "good" school, is to purchase a house within the catchment area of that school. This has led to selection by financial means of parents rather than ability at passing exams.

During the late sixties there was heated debate about the merits of streaming pupils. In grammar schools pupils were taught in different classes according to their perceived ability. At first the comprehensives copied this structure, but the failings of streaming, principally that it failed to reflect the spread of abilities in different subjects, led to experiments with other methods. One controversial method, mixed ability teaching, was widely adopted. Over time however it was supplanted in many schools by 'setting', where children are grouped by ability in different subjects, allowing the possibility of being in the 'top' set for mathematics, but the bottom set for History.

External links

• Center for the Study of Comprehensive Schools Retrieved November 9, 2007.
• Campaign for State Education Retrieved November 9, 2007.
• Secretary of State for Education Ruth Kelly on comprehensive education Retrieved November 9, 2007.
• Comp, a BBC Radio 4 documentary about the creation of comprehensive schools. Retrieved November 9, 2007.
• Discussions in 2002 about the future of comprehensives Retrieved November 9, 2007.
• Educational Inequality and Sociological Models Retrieved November 9, 2007.

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