How can you justify a non-selective education system?

I went to a selective school. It doesn't matter whether it was private or state-run because that's not the issue I want to talk about. There have been many threads before comparing grammar schools, grant maintained schools, independent schools, denominational schools and comprehensive schools, so if you have an opinion on types of schools, this is not the thread for you to post it in. I want to address the academic benefits to an individual pupil in a non-selective education system compared to the benefits to the same pupil in a selective system, where students are selected by ability.

I believe a major benefit to me of a selective school was that we didn't stick rigidly to the exam board's syllabus and had a lot of time to talk more about the topics and learn extra, more interesting things because we didn't have to keep going over things that some of us already knew. Had I been at the local comprehensive, I may have come out with the same grades, but I don't think I would have had anywhere near the same level of wider knowledge.

I'd support that with the fact that I got A* in French at GCSE, but I would judge myself to have perhaps three times(?) the vocabulary and sentence construction skills in French than I did in Spanish, which I also got an A* in. The reason for this, I think, is because I was only in a mixed ability group for Spanish and not French.

If the government is so keen to let people fulfill their potential, why would they restrict the brighter pupils with the comprehensive system, as I was restricted in my mixed ability group? Are they saying that I should be happy with my A* in Spanish despite the fact that I know I could now be a better Spanish speaker had I not been in a set with people who didn't learn as quickly? Or am I just being greedy because I wanted to learn quicker than others?

On the other side of the coin, I saw people in my Physics set who got E's and U's at A-level because it was a mixed ability class, when all of the teachers, they and I knew they were capable of B's and A's. The problem was that we went far too fast for some people and they just didn't have the time to absorb the material. Yes, we spent plenty of time off-syllabus doing lots of interesting things, but it really didn't help them when they couldn't remember the basic equations.

If the government is so keen to let people fulfill their potential, why would they restrict the less able pupils with the comprehensive system, as my classmates were restricted in a mixed ability group? Or is it just tough that they are not allowed to learn at their own pace?

It is true that our non-selective schools at the moment (yes, most of them happen to be "comprehensives") do set by ability internally, and pupils are undoubtedly better off for it. However, I would ask why not extend this further? By having a selective system, there is an inherently wider catchment area for each school, and so each school can capture more people of similar ability, and so the internal setting becomes very much more targetted, and each pupil receives a level of teaching and assistance appropriate to his or her ability level.

Surely a selective education system is better than trying to teach less able students at a pace faster than they woud like, whilst boring the brighter pupils at a pace slower than they would like? People are very much not equal in terms of their academic ability and this has to be recognised, instead of pretending that everyone is the same because it fits a political ideal of social equality. I have never been able to see how to justify the non-selective education system that we have at the moment, and I would be interested to hear any sensible arguments for it.

I live in an area that still has grammar schools, but even though I passed my 11+, I went to a comprehensive. Although I have sometimes wondered what it would have been like at a grammar school and whether I would have done any better, I've never really regretted my decision. Admittedly, it was more my parents' decision as I don't really think a child of 11 is capable of making a big decision like that. The main problem I have with the selective system, and the reason I think a comprehensive system with streams and sets is better, is that one test at the age of 11 is not enough to determine how clever someone is and how well they're going to do in exams in 5 years. Fir example, a boy in my year with the best GCSE results didn't pass his 11+, whereas I did but my results weren't as good. Yet if I'd chosen to, I could have gone to a grammar and he couldn't. It's very difficult for someone to change from a comprehensive to a grammar or vice versa if the 11+ turned out to be inaccurate; how would you test someone for the grammar school? What if all the comprehensives/grammars in the area were full? In a comprehensive, it's very easy to move someone up or down a set accordingly as their abilities change.

I realise that there are problems with the comprehensive system. The range of ability is so big that even in my year, where we had 2 streams divided into 5 sets for each subject in the top stream and 4 in the bottom, we stil had people sitting different tier exam papers and aiming for about 4 different grades. This makes it very difficult for the teacher to strike a balance. They have to try to find a middle ground, but that means the lower ability students will find it too hard and too fast, so they'll give up and behave badly, whereas the higher ability students will find it too easy and too slow, will be prevented from learning due to the distruption and will not be taught sufficient higher level work for the top grades. Another problem is that, because as far as league tables are concerned, a C is worth the same as an A*, teachers are often concerned not with making sure each student gets the best grade they can, which would take far too long in classes of 30, but just making sure as many as possible get Cs. Again, this prevents students who would otherwise have been capable of an A* or an A from achieveing one. The only exception I must make is French, where I got an A*. I was the only one, then a few people got As and the majority Bs and Cs (top set) The reason I was able to do that is because my teacher taught us everything we needed to know for an A*, even though I was the only one capable of achieving one. I was also never left to sit there bored when I finished ages before everyone else; he always made sure I had some more challenging extension work to be getting on with. If all teachers were like that, there wouldn't be a problem, but unfortunately few are.

Having said all that, I still believe the comprehensive system is better because it's the best solution for everyone, rather than benefitting the top and leaving everyone else to rot.

Ultimatly what made my selective entry scool the best was small class sizes. My bigest class had 12 students in it.