Why state schools should stream their pupils

Her chaotic comprehensive let her down. Now Zoe Brennan argues that brighter kids deserve to be taught separately

Zoe Brennan: I am glad my children are being streamed

This was to be the first step towards a glittering future, so as I pushed open the heavy, Seventies‑issue London comprehensive school door, I was full of ambition and youthful enthusiasm.

“What do you want to do?” the careers adviser asked my 16-year-old self.

“I want to be a journalist,” I said proudly. “And I want to go to Oxford.”

“Have you thought of a secretarial course?” she asked.

The head of sixth form refused to give me a reference for Oxford, because “no one from here gets in there”. My sister wanted to be a doctor, but my parents were told that this was also a hopeless delusion, as she was “not good enough” at science. She is now a senior consultant in emergency medicine, running a busy A&E department.

I left that school and pursued my dreams, too. We both have wonderful memories of Pimlico Comprehensive – a visionary place in many ways. But suffice it to say, aspiration was lacking, and so was the education.

So I read Sir Michael Wilshaw’s speech to the CentreForum think-tank last week with interest. The Ofsted chief inspector talked of “the lingering damage caused by the botched reform of our schools in the Sixties and Seventies”.

"I have wonderful memories of Pimlico Comprehensive – a visionary place in many ways. But suffice it to say, aspiration was lacking, and so was the education."

He said: “The ideologues who drove the comprehensive agenda confused equality with equity. They took it to mean that one size should fit all. There was a wholesale dumbing down of standards.” And he added: “Look up the initiatives that encrusted schools like useless barnacles, such as the Smile maths programme, which encouraged children to amble up to the filing cabinet, pick out their worksheet and learn at their own speed.”

Oh, yes, we remember Smile, and those lacklustre maths sessions. And the school strikes, the militant Left teachers, the pupils wrestling on the unpoliced concourse to the jubilant chorus of “Fight, fight, fight”, the regular setting fire to bins, the lack of school uniform and the total absence of discipline.

Pimlico was built in the late Sixties: a futuristic vision of education for all, captured in glass and concrete. Along with the gleaming Holland Park comprehensive school in West London, it was a flagship for social reformers who believed this utopia would deliver a brave new world, doing away with the dreaded 11-plus and offering everyone opportunity.

Progressive middle-class parents – my own included – sat around Hampstead dining tables discussing how the inclusion of their offspring in this experiment would filter achievement and academic aspiration down.

On the ground, by the time I arrived at Pimlico in 1983, things were rather different. My parents were appalled when told it did not matter what grades I achieved. Thankfully, they disagreed.

Streamlined: Zoe with her two sons, both at state school
Streamlined: Zoe with her two sons, both at state school

Elements of the vision remained: we had Hurtwood, a wonderful country house where we went for school trips. The eminent journalist Victor Keegan ran the school newspaper, inspiring my choice of career. But teaching was delivered in mixed-ability classes in a permanent atmosphere of chaos. Some pupils were unable to read or write, instead disrupting the class. I left to do my A-levels at a sixth-form college, going on to Oxford.

Today, my own children, aged 12 and 14, go to a non-selective state school, where they are streamed in all subjects. This seemed to me to be the perfect solution. They work hard, they are not bored, there is discipline in the classroom and peer pressure to do well. Above all, they are motivated to achieve.

Then I spoke to a friend whose son is in the bottom stream at his state school. He is a lovely, highly intelligent boy with dyslexia. She is at her wits’ end. “It’s known as 'the stupid class’,” she says. “He doesn’t want to go to school anymore, and is sick on Sunday nights.”

Interestingly, his father is a teacher, who has been working at an inner London comprehensive for seven years. His is a hard-nosed response: “Our son is unhappy being in the less able class. It has been a self-esteem issue for him. But the fact is, in life there are winners and losers. You’ve got to suck it up. He’s just got to try his hardest. The teachers give him extra help. It is a gold mine for bullies, though, and the school could disguise things better by mixing the bottom-set children into different forms.”

"For my part, I am glad my children are being streamed. I would hate them to endure the boredom of endlessly disrupted lessons, as I did."

As a teacher, the father is pro‑streaming, having taught mixed‑ability classes where he wastes time managing the behaviour of “a few clowns”. “You see two or three kids, really bright, with loads of potential, just sitting there having to put up with this circus,” he says. “Believe me, that doesn’t feel great either.”

So who benefits most from streaming? And what should you do as a parent? Of course, this is not an issue at highly selective schools – Eton takes only the very brightest children.

Dr Lee Elliot Major is chief executive of the Sutton Trust, which aims to improve social mobility through education. With setting, children are taught by ability in individual subjects, such as maths, whereas with streaming the whole year group is divided into bands.

Both systems can work well, he believes, but tend to benefit the children in the highest sets. Poorer children are disproportionately represented in the lower sets. “It can be a blunt instrument, particularly when used as a 'fixed’ concept, with children consigned to one set their entire time at school. It comes back to the quality of teaching – good teachers would be continually assessing children,” he says. Parents should ask questions when looking at schools, such as whether, and how often, sets are reviewed.

The Sutton Trust has commissioned Prof Becky Francis, from King’s College London, to research the issue, which remains politically charged.

Pimlico Comprehensive was put on special measures, and then demolished six years ago, a sad defeat for the idealism on which it was founded. It has been replaced with a new-build academy.

For my part, I am glad my children are being streamed. I would hate them to endure the boredom of endlessly disrupted lessons, as I did. Sir Michael Wilshaw is right – equality and equity are not the same at all.