by Paul Francis

Campaigners have renewed calls for Kent’s selective education system to be abolished, saying it could be phased out within 10 years at virtually no cost.

Comprehensive Future, an independent group that lobbies for fair admissions to schools, argues that grammar schools could be phased out without causing major disruption over a period of years.

It says changes could begin within three years if the next Government determined a date to bring an end to the selective system.

At the moment, the only way in which grammars could be scrapped is if enough parents sign a petition demanding a ballot on their future. That has happened only once and in Kent, an attempt to trigger a vote was abandoned 10 years ago after campaigners failed to secure enough signatures.

Under Comprehensive Future’s proposals, the Government would abolish the ballot legislation and instead set a date to end the selective system.

At that point, grammar schools would admit their first intake of all-ability pupils and eventually become fully comprehensive over seven years.

The group has set out its ideas in a report "Ending Rejection At Eleven" which says that in Kent such a re-organisation could happen quickly, with no disturbance to pupils and at no cost.

Fiona Millar, Comprehensive Future chairman, said that as all the main political parties were now agreed there should no longer be selective schooling, a debate was needed about how to end the 11-plus.

"Pupils in grammar schools would not affected. They would continue to be taught by the same teachers in the same schools and same buildings. We do not want to destroy any school - we simply want to change the intake. Kent still has a system in which the vast majority of pupils are rejected, not selected."

Ms Millar said grammar school places were increasingly taken by children whose parents had paid private tutors to coach them through the 11-plus.

"Grammar schools are no longer the route to social mobility that was the case 20 or 30 years ago. There is evidence that parents are spending £3,000 to £4,000, which is way beyond the reach of poorer families."