IQ2 goes back to school

1 March 2008

Lloyd Evans reports on the latest Spectator / Intelligence Squared debate

Intelligence Squared squared up to intelligence last Tuesday. How do we get the best from our brightest youngsters while not chucking the dimwits on to the educational scrapheap? Chris Woodhead, former chief inspector of schools, proposed the motion, ‘All schools, state as well as private, should be allowed to select their own pupils.’ With his wry, memorable turn of phrase, he derided the idea that selection equals segregation. ‘It’s a myth that the sharp-elbowed middle classes colonise the best schools while the working classes lose out.’ Teachers, he said, were sick and tired of Whitehall diktats. And those opposing selection represented ‘the best possible example of Old Labour’s rancour and bitterness’. He characterised the government’s policy as self-regarding envy. ‘If everybody can’t have excellence, then no one will.’

Opposing him, the former education secretary David Blunkett spoke with great charm and wit and insisted that ‘schools should meet the needs of the child, not the other way round’. Arguing in favour of centralised policy, he used the example of synthetic phonics. This flash-card system of teaching kids to read isn’t universally admired, but its adoption has been ordered by the government. So far the results have been encouraging. Blunkett then toddled off to vote in parliament, leaving his side rather short of firepower. Martin Stephen, High Master of St Paul’s, opened up with a joke. ‘There are only three political types. Right-wing fascist bastard. Bleeding-heart liberal. And loony leftie. And I’m all three.’ He was educated at a non-selective comprehensive in Manchester and he’s convinced of the need for selection. He gave common-sense examples — top orchestras, Premiership football teams — which have to recruit on the basis of ability. ‘And if you concentrate bright children together, they spur each other on and set standards for the least able.’ And it’s the least able that concern him most. Money should be found, he said, to educate the most troublesome kids. Lots and lots of money. There should be specialist schools providing one-to-one teaching. ‘And if the cost of those schools isn’t twice the fees for St Paul’s or Eton, let’s sack the politicians.’ Huge applause for that.

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