Dr Nuala Burgess interview

Torrin Wilkins: Hello, and welcome to the interview. My name is Torrin Wilkins, the Director of Centre Think Tank. Today, we are talking to Dr Nuala Burgess. She is the chair of Comprehensive Future, a campaign group that aims to abolish the 11+. The 11+ is otherwise known as Selection at Ten, or grammar schools and secondary moderns. They are trying to scrap the system across England and Northern Ireland.

We will be talking to her about Comprehensive Future, our partnership with them, why grammar schools are problematic, and how we might start shifting political opinion on this issue.

Whilst the Liberal Democrats have made some of the right noises on selection, in reality, they are not actually against it. They are in favour of preventing grammar schools from expanding, but not in favour of abolishing the grammar school system. I am quite interested in this large mismatch. If you listen to what Layla Moran says on the 11+, it is a very different story from Liberal Democrat policy. What are your thoughts about this?

Nuala Burgess: I am so interested that you said this. We have recently been in touch with Layla Moran and asked what her stance is, as Comprehensive Future is a cross-party organisation. We all have this common cause.

Layla Moran is one of the few MPs to state clearly that she is anti-11+ and that she would abolish it. I know this may seem unusual to people, but try getting that clear statement from a Labour MP. It is really difficult, and harder to get from a lot of Tories. I am not saying it does not happen, but to date, I have not managed to get a clear statement from them.

We did have a soft promise that we would look at this when I met with Melissa Benn, who said they would look at it as part of a wider review of high-stakes testing in primary schools. We said, “In that review, would you please consider the 11 plus?” We thought we had a promise for that to be done and put in a manifesto, but it did not happen.

I felt let down; however, the Liberal Democrats are the only people to state publicly, through Layla Moran, that they would abolish the 11 +. We are excited by this, and Layla was very generous with her time when we approached her for comment.

Kate Green MP has also recently shown a willingness to talk. My interpretation was that although she wants to abolish the 11+, she would still retain grammar schools, and seemed to be suggesting that they could have a comprehensive intake. I think that is having your cake and eating it. If you have grammar schools for local pupils available open to all local pupils, that suggests a comprehensive intake.

Torrin Wilkins: It is a very odd idea. I have heard this discussed before. We have had Conservative MPs who have said, “We would have a comprehensive system with grammar schools.” The idea is that you have a comprehensive system, which means all pupils are accepted into that school from all levels, and then grammar schools take the top 25 per cent who have passed the 11+. It does not make any sense, but it does seem to be this idea of trying to please everyone at once.

The Liberal Democrats said they are against the 11+, but in the manifesto, it has been very clearly stated that we would just stop the creation of any new grammar schools. It is trying to please both sides at the same time, saying they are against the 11+, when they simply would not expand the system. Therefore, voters go to the polls believing the Liberal Democrats are against it.

Nuala Burgess: That was what the Labour policy seemed to be under the Corbyn leadership. There is no comprehensive system; if there are any grammar schools, you cannot de facto have a comprehensive system if there is any alternative. That is not comprehensive. I am an English teacher by training. Look up the word comprehensive. It cannot be done and does not make sense. The only way around this is to phase them out.

Although it was challenging, certain areas managed it very gracefully. In Hampshire, where I did some research, they simply phased them out. They had middle schools and used grammar schools for sixth form colleges. 

Whether you want a vocational course, an academic mix, or if you have a passion for IT and applied subjects, there is an institution you can go to. Although I love the idea that 16-year-olds get to choose options such as vocational courses, I have been criticised because it detracts from the idea of comprehensive education, which I was very fortunate to have. 

I was kicked out of my private school, but was blessed to have ended up at a comprehensive school. I had the most fabulous post-16 education. As well as A-levels, I also did car mechanics and learned about art history. I dug the local old people’s garden as part of a community project. I did a bit of everything, and I mixed with every student within that sixth form. It was the most exciting sixth form any young person could have. I think it enriched me. It yanked me out of my comfortable middle-class life.

I am sure if my parents were still here, they would curse it to this day because thereafter, I was never going to be politically right of centre. I try to be as centrist as I possibly can as chair of Comprehensive Future.

As I was blessed to have had a comprehensive education, I know what I am talking about. I would love every young person to have it because those who excelled academically were given insights into all sorts of other things. I did not know that I loved art, that I was quite good at it. I was part of a band. All these wonderful opportunities came because we had this glorious mix of talents and tastes and imagined futures. It was a wonderful school, and I wish every young person knew what that could be like. 

‘The gifted’, do not get dragged down. Everybody is enriched. Everybody benefits. I feel strongly that comprehensive education is the answer.

I know there is an argument for different types of post-16. It is probably cheaper, and if money were no object, we would have these wonderful post-16 institutions where we would all go. We would have met the guy doing physics, and the girl who was into fashion, and we would all be better citizens for it.

Torrin Wilkins: This is very similar to my own reason. I am from a middle-class background, but I went to a comprehensive and it did not hold me back. I went into politics just as I would have. 

Grammar schools’ intake is very skewed towards people who have been tutored or gone to private schools. My politics would have been shaped by those groups. Instead, I was in an English class with people who wanted to be plumbers or artists, and I did singing when I was at school as well, so I can very much relate to that example you gave. 

I often find one of the biggest reasons people like selection is that they did not like their experience of the comprehensive system.  I think this is mainly about what separates the system of selection and the school itself. Selection just means that 25% of people go to a grammar school normally, and then the other 75% go to secondary moderns. This leads to a split education system. You do not meet the same people in your area, the other 75%. It is segregating education. According to our findings, 4 out of the 163 grammar schools in the UK, have an average or above average number of students with a disability.

Nuala Burgess: I think you have done well because my stats did not show that. I do not think any kids should be labelled disabled. I prefer to talk about additional needs. It could be physical or learning. Are you speaking specifically about schools that made allowances for young people with physical or learning difficulties? Is a disabled person physically disabled?

Torrin Wilkins: This is directly off of Ofsted reports in terms of the direct quotas in what they are saying. I believe that they are including Special Educational Needs students in that.

Nuala Burgess: This is the problem, because different stats show different things. Disabled is a horrible phrase. It is kids with additional needs. We all know that grammar schools have a very below average number of kids on pupil premium, free school meals, disabled, and additional needs. The latest facts show that grammar schools are generally better funded. The bigger schools in selective areas are the ones with all the kids with additional needs and need extra funding. Ed Davey has spoken about this. There could be incentives to schools to be mixed ability by giving them extra funding so that it is not such a struggle to cope with the extra resources needed to cater for every single young person.

I’ve been ‘slapped on the wrist’ for saying this, but there are covert forms of selection that both academies and grammar schools are doing. They will say “we do not think this is the school for you, and you would be better off somewhere else.” They shove off so-called ‘problem kids’ somewhere else and boost their performance. If you select kids who pass tests and are good under exam conditions, then your school has higher attainment. The fact that people believe those schools are better is hilarious, yet people buy into it and sustain it by coaching these children to pass the 11+ and fill up grammar schools.

Torrin Wilkins: What would you say to a parent who was going to send their child in for an 11+ test to get into a grammar school?

Nuala Burgess: I’m not a parent, but I’ve taught. Some of the best teachers are going to be in non-selective schools, because you tend to be a special teacher who wants to work in those environments. All teachers can teach higher-attaining kids. The real teaching comes with bringing a kid up, encouraging, inspiring and motivating. I guess some grammar schools do it, but look at the ethos of the school. Do they care about the child as a whole being, or is it just about grades? If I were a parent, I’d want my child to be happy and inspired, as they’ll learn wherever they are. Force-feeding a child is not a recipe for a happy educational experience.

I can hear the grammar school people shouting, “But it does not have to be like that.” I know not every grammar school is like this, but they are hot houses compared to all-inclusive comprehensives. I am basing a lot of this on schools I have worked in, but also on schools I have researched.

I have worked in different schools, whether that’s comprehensives in disadvantaged areas, private schools and further education. My own research with Comprehensive Future has taken me into some really amazing comprehensives down in Hampshire, where they do great work.

I went into one comprehensive, and it just so happened that it was the comprehensive in that area where they had special facilities, such as for physically disabled kids. I thought this was amazing. There was another comprehensive which happens to be especially good for the visually impaired. There was a visually impaired basketball team, and they played with sighted kids. All the parents of visually impaired children in that area know that it is a normal comprehensive, but they also have the resources for their child.

There was one for kids with additional needs, such as those on the autistic spectrum, and there were schools that informally built up their own specialism. They were all designed around the idea of the comprehensive, but certain schools were particularly good if you had a kid who had a visual impairment or was on the lower end of the Asperger’s spectrum.

One child was sighted, but he played basketball with the visually impaired kids. It is all part of his training. I thought that was a wonderful lesson for life. I love the idea that you had these mixed classes and everyone got on with it. If you are a parent who only cares about results, then fair enough, but that does not make us rounded human beings. My excitement about music, art and politics all came from my comprehensive school, and it’s never left me. The curriculum is getting greatly impoverished, but it is not the fault of schools.

Torrin Wilkins: In my comprehensive, we had an entire building just for supporting kids with additional needs. The school focused on performing arts. My partner went to a grammar school, and she missed out on the mix of subjects which I got. They were shunned, even if it was physical education or a B-tech style subject, as “this is not why you are at grammar school.”

There is also more of a focus on rote learning in grammar schools, and it’s often said that they are an exam factory. Students come out with very good exam grades and are seen as intelligent, but when they get to university, they are not able to think as deeply or come up with an argument, especially in a subject like politics. Coming up with something yourself and rote learning are two very different things. 

Nuala Burgess: I can’t believe it happens in this day and age; sitting, taking notes, and then answering an exam question. These are the high-attaining kids, but I bet they would be just as high-attaining in comprehensiveness. They may even be better as they have had a bash at something else. I am sure it narrows your outlook, but that is not my particular area of research. I am doing research into sixth forms as part of my work with King’s College London, and it’s a similar story there with regards to selecting out. You cannot absorb any fun, music, passion, or time for politics.

Parents believe traditional teaching is the answer because this apparently gets you the exam results. What people do not realise is that the exams have been tailored so that we can produce results to measure schools. It is not about education or the children. This goes far deeper than the grammar school comprehensive debate, but grammar schools are particularly skilled at producing this.  I know a lot of kids who have been very unhappy at grammar school. There may be higher-achieving kids who got pushed into Oxbridge or certain types of universities, because it reflects well on the school. I know I am tarring them all with the same brush, but I am going on first-hand accounts.

Torrin Wilkins: I have spoken to many people who have come out with the same stories. For example, instead of receiving pastoral care, it was advice on how to apply to Oxford or Cambridge. 

Nuala Burgess: My research on UCAS applications and how much support was given in schools showed that the status of the institution to which you were applying would qualify you for certain amounts of help. If you are going to Oxbridge, you will receive all the help you want with personal statements, interview practice, voluntary experience, etc. Whereas a young person who might want to do sound engineering at a new university couldn’t get a teacher to help them with their personal statement. It was disgusting.

In grammar schools, you are all expected to go to the very top university, and nobody goes to a local college or somewhere similar. There are some great courses, and they are missing out on life. The Russell Group has become like the grammar school tier of the university system. It is a nasty elitism that comes with where you go in your institution.

Torrin Wilkins: Everyone seems to have similar stories around the differences between grammar schools and comprehensives. This seems to be gradually affecting opinion polls. YouGov now has a poll tracker on support for keeping grammar schools, and support has been plummeting. What is the next step to get to a point where the public supports abolishing them?

Nuala Burgess: The only way is to educate parents. I do not mean that in a patronising way. I am sure they know what is best for their young children, and I understand the pressure. Parents often have a choice between an apparent failing school and a grammar school. If you starve comprehensive schools of funding, they cannot do well, and you have made sure they fail. If we gave our teachers the time to do their job properly, I believe a comprehensive system is the answer, but we no longer have a decent model of comprehensive education. Parents are the answer, and we need to show them what a  good comprehensive can be. Also, if MPs in selective areas knew that parents were not going to vote for them if they stuck by the grammar schools, then they would change their tune.

Parents need some education to understand what a comprehensive actually is. It does not mean in any schools that are not grammar schools. Those are secondary moderns, because they have every higher-attaining child selected out, which cannot be a comprehensive school. It would demand funding, and it would demand courage from whichever party would grab the reins and take it up. It is not the parents’ fault. I get frustrated with this idea of parental choice because, with all due respect, parents do not really know about education. They know what is good for their child, but not what makes a great school. They have been taught to believe it is what Ofsted says.

I would love more webinars like this, but let us bring in parents and more MPs to talk to us, to exchange ideas. I would love to do it in selective areas. It is a very difficult time; we have COVID-19 hitting us from left field, and then there is going to be Brexit. Education is right at the bottom when it comes to what people really value at the moment. But there are lots of young people who are going to lose out. We have researched this subject so we know it fluently, but most only know as much as they need to. They just want the best for their child. I do not think we should be forcing parents to make a choice, and a comprehensive system done properly could allow us all to rest easy. There would be no school choice because every school would be a good school.

Torrin Wilkins: People in grammar school areas are in a bubble, and they may ask how a comprehensive system would work. The answer is that it would be just like the rest of the UK. We need to inform them about more choices besides selection.

Nuala Burgess: That is the most frightening thing. You go to any other country, like France and Spain, and it takes so much to try and explain the English education system. They end up laughing at you, or they are appalled that you test 10-year-olds to get into a school. Those in the bubble have no idea that the rest of the world is carrying on. Everybody was educated, and they did not have a grammar school. Comprehensives are not a barrier to anything.

I know there is great work going on at Durham University. Stephen Gorard and Professor Vikki Boliver are doing extensive research on this, which shows it has nothing to do with the school. It is the socioeconomic background of the families that can pay for the coaching to get those kids into grammar schools. It is not that those schools are better. They just happen to have certain families in the area who have got the money and the resources. Some of the kids are probably slightly higher attaining, and they passed the 11+. It has nothing to do with the school.

Everywhere else in England is carrying on quite happily, whilst a few areas are absolutely obsessed with it. It would not be that difficult to phase out the 11+. Kids have had the most traumatic few months. They have not had continuous education. There is no way you can expect a kid to arrive in the new school year and take the 11+. Even if you delay it to November, will they be going to catch up in a few weeks? So they have wisely decided this year to have comprehensive intakes. It is dangerous and unfair to run A-levels,  GCSEs and SATs, but not the 11+?

Torrin Wilkins: There is that worry that if we run it on a comprehensive system, and it works, then goodness me, that would be terrible! That bubble at the moment has not burst. There is still that feeling that there is no good system outside of the grammar school system. The only reason I can find to still run the 11+ test during the pandemic is to make sure that the key system is working. If they run it with a comprehensive intake, then parents will ask why we need to start selecting students. Northern Ireland has cancelled the transfer test, as people realise that they do not need it. 

Nuala Burgess: The whole world would stop turning, as you know.

Torrin Wilkins: Exactly.

Nuala Burgess: I know that people are still rumbling about it, but I have family in the Channel Islands and in Guernsey, they are not doing the 11+ anymore. I know they have not been entirely happy with the journey, but it has been abolished. We had a webinar, and Kieran is part of the Catholic grammar schools. He has decided not to run the 11+, claiming it is a moral decision. It is socially unjust to run the 11+ this year.

I think you are right. We might discover that comprehensives work. I did a project when I researched GCSE results in Buckinghamshire and Hampshire. More young people attained better and higher grades in Hampshire than in Buckinghamshire. Hampshire is non-selective, and Buckinghamshire is selective. More young people got more GCSEs with higher grades in Hampshire. It is true that if we counted the number of A-stars, Buckinghamshire pipped it, but not so dramatically as to make all those grammar schools actually worth it. More young people achieve better in Hampshire. So, we really think A-stars matter more than overall education? 

Torrin Wilkins: That is what happens when you look at the cost of the system. The cost is huge for Special Educational Needs children, kids with parents on a lower income, slower academic developers, bilingual students and even people born in August; all of those who do not get in. One test we did was to get university students to do the 11+ test. People who did math degrees were not able to get through it and pass. You have to be tutored to get through those questions.

Nuala Burgess: You are absolutely right. When I did this research, I had an Oxford-educated family, and people doing PhDs did the test. My niece, who happens to be pretty high attaining and was preparing for the 11+ and got the highest mark. She was 10. You suddenly realise there was a method. If you knew the way that the riddle was being set, there was an answer, but you had to be in the right mindset.

There is no relation to the paper in the primary school curriculum. I looked at those verbal and nonverbal reasoning, and I was intrigued by them, but I could not get them all. Your mind is doing gymnastics trying to work out how you rotate this three-dimensional figure and then guess which side of the sun was shining on a Tuesday, or some other equally obscure puzzle. Unbelievable stuff. That is the coaching you pay for. That is what is so wrong.

Torrin Wilkins: It would be a good idea to test some students who passed the 11+, again, just after A-level results or GCSE results, depending on how far that grammar school goes, to see how much recent tutoring made a difference to their results.

Nuala Burgess: The Centre for Evaluation and Monitoring (CEM) had to drop that claim. Because it was not tutor-proof. It was nonsense. There just is not a way to have a test that is tutor-proof. Unfortunately, the 11+ test is something that some kids pass who do not need tutoring. But unfortunately, for the most part, the figures show that people who pass got tutored.

They go to prep schools! And yet grammar schools offer free education! Those are publicly funded elite schools, and that I really object to. I know people feel we should be banning private schools. For me, that is lower down the list. We should not be having selective schools which are publicly funded. We all pay taxes for those schools, and only a tiny, tiny minority gets into them. That is wrong. Can you imagine having paid for my taxes for the NHS, and that only certain people were allowed to get X-rays?

We all pay into the NHS, but only some people are allowed access to the hospital, maybe because they pass a certain criterion or a test. It is an outrage. That is another really good reason why I think grammar schools should be phased out. They are publicly funded and they are dominated by middle-class people, or should we say more affluent people?

I know someone is going to come and say, “I am a working-class person” Great for you, but they are dominated by the middle classes.If they feel that strongly about their elitist education, then just pay for it then, because I think we should have a publicly funded education open to everybody. In time, I would phase out private schools too, but publicly funded education is my priority first.

Torrin Wilkins: That is very much the discussion we had in Centre Think Tank when drawing up policies was that our top priority was to get rid of the 11+, because as much as we would want to reform private schools, we may not even go as close as abolishing them, probably just ensure they pay VAT, for instance.

Nuala Burgess: I would be with you on that.

Torrin Wilkins: Private schools are so far down that list because on the one hand, grammar schools use taxpayer money, and on the other hand, you have people who are using their own money. For the Labour Party, it seems that private schools are further up that ladder than grammar schools. Grammar schools just do not seem to get that look unless you are talking to someone specifically from a grammar school area. Often, people who are fighting inequality are doing it in a way that is specifically focused towards private schools. They are the big enemy rather than the system that is using taxpayers’ money to fund education for people who are majority tutored or went to private school.

Nuala Burgess: Absolutely. It was the one policy I have to confess where I just did not see eye to eye on Labour policy. I am not saying it is not a great idea, and I know from my own campaigning, what matters to parents. Private schools were nothing. Getting their schools funded in selective areas, schools that were losing out because all the resources went to their local grammar school, is what mattered.

I do think there is something very wrong with having an elite school system within a publicly funded education system. Certain people benefit from it, and only certain people who can afford it are benefiting from it. Prep school kids will then go into grammar schools, or you pay for coaching. So either way, it is going to be parents, except for a very, very few. I know there will be an exception, but exceptions do not make the rule. The majority are from affluent parents. I would be for phasing them out. I think there are ways of keeping the wonderful resources like the teaching and the expertise, and reserving it for perhaps a sixth form model. You do not have to lose the expertise that they have. I am not saying they are bad schools. I just think that we give everyone a broader, comprehensive, and inclusive education. That part is really formative for them. We can decide another day whether we have comprehensive sixth forms or specialist sixth forms.

Certainly, from 11 to 16, they should all be together. I think we will also make better choices at A-level for what your post-16 will be. It does not have to be A-level, but your post-16 choices are going to be so much better if you have had a great mix of experiences and meetings with people, and you have just been open to all those different things you can do in life. I think your post-16 choices would be better informed. Have you ever taught yourself?

Torrin Wilkins: I have not. I would have loved to, but I am far too into politics. As we are coming to the end, I want to ask you one final question. What is the one killer argument you would use against grammar schools?

Nuala Burgess: It privileges more affluent families. It is a publicly funded system which can be accessed by the middle classes. I know it is not a sound bite, but when you have publicly funded education where the middle class can game it and win at it, that is just wrong when it should be open to everybody. The public education system is for everybody. It should not be reserved for a tiny elite. I feel passionately about that. One section of our society benefits from this system, and it is just wrong.

Torrin Wilkins: I totally agree with that. Thank you so much for coming on.

Nuala Burgess: It has been fun. I would love to do it again.

Note: This interview has been edited for grammar, clarity, and flow. The original recording is the final and definitive version.