PLANS to allow schools to select more pupils on the basis of ability have been blasted by local head teachers.

The proposals, announced by Education Secretary Gillian Shephard, will allow schools to take up to 15 per cent of pupils by selection, compared with the present 10 per cent.

But comprehensive school heads say the moves are potentially divisive and fear a return to the "bad old days" of the 11-plus.

Head teacher Neil Thornley, a national executive member of the National Association of Head Teachers, launched a scathing attack on the proposal.

"It's sheer, arrant propaganda. They are trying to win votes by the crudest possible means," said Mr Thornley, head of Fearns High School, Bacup.

"I worked in grammar schools for 20 years and they were failures because they only served the elite in the school.

"Most comprehensive schools, as the OFSTED reports show, are doing an exceptionally good job for most pupils. I'm totally committed to comprehensive education because it works."

Mr Frank Shuttleworth, headmaster of Shadsworth Junior School, Blackburn, and county secretary of the National Union of Teachers, said his union was also completely against the move. He said it was getting back to the old 11-plus system of selection which branded many bright youngsters as failures.

"It is re-inventing the wheel which was proved to be square rather than round," he said

"At least the 11-plus was open and honest but this is not, because only the best schools will have this selection.

"The Government has created an expectation among parents that they will have a choice but if that choice is based on ability it is no choice at all.

"Selectivity would only be used in the best schools and the union is against it because it leads to elitism.

"It is geared to the brightest middle class children and there are an awful lot of children who aren't middle class and a lot of middle class children who aren't that bright," he said.

Mr Martin Burgess, head of Edge End High School, Nelson, agreed that comprehensives were the best way of educating youngsters of all abilities and did not want to see an increase in selection. He said: "Standards have risen quite substantially across the board because of the comprehensive system and any move away from that will be counter-productive in a society that is striving hard for high achievement among all its citizens.

"Having taught in both types of school, I would never teach in a selective school again."

However, not all head teachers dismissed the idea out of hand.

Mr David Clayton, head of grant-maintained Habergham High School, Burnley, said: "We are regularly over-subscribed and our governors would be bound to consider this initiative with an open mind."

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