ANTI-grammar school campaigners in Buckinghamshire say it is time the Government got off its backside and backed the abolition of the 11 plus.o

They are starting a new campaign at a time when the county's selective school system is delivering some of the best exam results in the country and the local education authority has just received a maximum three stars from the Government for education.

Local campaigners joined other abolitionists at Westminster on Monday to launch the campaign. Speakers, including the Labour county councillor for Marsh and Micklefield, Clare Martens, said selective schools were socially divisive, children did better in comprehensive schools, and branding children as failures at 11 was wrong.

She added: "We feel very disappointed that the Labour Party's long-standing commitment to reducing selective education has not been supported in any way by this Government."

Tim Dingle, head of High Wycombe's Royal Grammar School, has talked to the Prime Minister on the subject, and said he did not think it would happen.

Mr Dingle said: "They are moaning and whingeing, but it is waste of time and all nonsense, diverting from the real issues like funding."

If change was forced on schools, parents would vote with their feet and move to independent schools, he warned.

But Cllr Martens told the rally, new academic evidence showed that bright children had as good or better opportunities in comprehensives.

A letter signed by 150 MPs, educationists, trade union representatives and others, including Trevor Fowler the leader of the Labour group on Buckinghamshire County Council, has been sent to all the Labour constituency parties, urging them to put pressure on the party to change its policy.

The Government does not actively oppose getting rid of grammar schools, but the system in place for doing so has made it virtually impossible.

The pressure group Buckinghamshire Parents for Comprehensive Education (BPCE) has twice tried and failed to get the necessary 18,000 signatures required to call for a referendum.

Malcolm Horne, of the BPCE, said that if the decision takers in this country were asked whether they would be prepared to be rejected at 11, or to allow their children to be, the answer would be no.

"If it is not good enough for the decision makers, it is not good enough for others," he added.

Asked if the education secretary Charles Clarke was backing the campaign, former education secretary Frank Dobson said at the rally on Monday: "If he is helping, he is keeping it from us."

January 24, 2003 12:30