I AM writing about the state infant school literacy and grammar schools link. The grammar school arguments in the media miss an important point.
Grammar schools were intended to provide a route for ‘bright’ kids from disadvantaged backgrounds, but since the 1960s grammars have been attacked for not providing that route for the disadvantaged by becoming ‘elitist’ or middle class.
The reason they could no longer provide that route for disadvantaged kids is that very many of those kids rely 100 per cent on the state infant school literacy teaching methods, which stopped using daily hours of whole class rote learning in the 1960s.
The replacement ‘ability set’ system provides only minutes a day and therefore only those with home education since the 1960s get into grammars, leading to charges of ‘elitism’ and subsequent dismantling of many grammars.
If the state infant literacy system fails, then the stream of disadvantaged kids into grammar schools dries up, which is exactly what happened.
Grammar schools have been blamed, but the real culprit is state infant school literacy teaching methods, reliant on parents.
S NICHOLSON (Mr), Campbell Road, Oxford
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