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A single examination at 16+ with a step-change in control over the Boards
The change to the 16+ examinations structure was a response to the pressure that had
been building up through the gradual change in the structure of the secondary system.
Discontent over the socially divisive nature of the three-track secondary structure
established by the 1944 Education Act grew as technical schools failed to develop and
secondary modems were evidently an inferior option: even their level of funding was
significantly below that of the grammar schools. The all-ability or comprehensive
school was widely seen as the fair way forward, and increasing numbers of Local
Education Authorities began to reorganise their secondary provision on that model.
Finally the Labour government acceded to the groundswell of pro-comprehensive
support and in 1965 Anthony Crosland issued Circular 10/65, which requested -
rather than required - Local Authorities to put forward plans for reorganising their
secondary provision on comprehensive lines. While its voluntarism disappointed
comprehensive advocates, it aroused bitter opposition in some Conservative areas
where popular grammar schools were threatened. This issue was identified by one
analyst as the point at which “the educational debate became politicized and
embittered in a way that it had not been since the religious controversies of 60 years
earlier” (Sharp 2002: 106).
The importance of the comprehensive issue here, however, was its impact on the
examination system. The gradual move toward comprehensive schools during the
1970s meant that most children were now making the transition to secondary school
with no test involved. Yet this significant structural change was not reflected by any
corresponding change in the examinations system: the divided secondary structure
was merely replicated within comprehensive schools. The GCE Ordinary level,