Clause36
Education and Inspections Bill
12:15 pm
Edward Leigh (Gainsborough, Conservative)
I am sure that some head teachers who are fully committed to the comprehensive system use that system of tests before admission to create precisely such a pure comprehensive school. That is undoubtedly right. There are head teachers who are fully committed to the comprehensive principle, but there are others, and there is a suspicion that they may use the approach I outlined. Some comprehensive schools seem to manage to achieve a very high-ability intake, and to do very well in the league tables.
Without naming names, I simply make the point that it is difficult to impose by central diktat what will happen to schools. Certain schools will be committed to a certain form and others will be committed to another way of proceeding. However many controls are established, and however many clauses like clause 36 are passed, many schools will circumvent them. We all know that quite a lot of fiddling with the league tables goes on in one way or another—children suddenly not appearing in tests and all the rest of it. There is no point in denying it; it happens. That is why it is idle to suppose that we in this room can create an education system entirely according to our own lights. We are dealing with such a complex situation that, ultimately, many schools will go their own way.