YOUR recent correspondents (letters headlined ‘Good grammar’ and ‘60s throwback’) remind me of a phrase of that era – I’m alright Jack.

Having enjoyed, as privileged minorities, the fruits of a grammar school education, people failed to see the adverse effects the selective system had on the majority of their 50s/60s generation of scholars.

I look back on my days as one of the few selected by examination for the local grammar school with far less pleasure.

If you came off the council estate, you stood out like a sore thumb and the odds were that you failed.

A few were able to cross the divide, but in the end academic success, which was the measure, came to less than half who attended.

Compare that with today, where locally most students get a genuine choice of comprehensive high schools and – thanks to a more talented teaching force being able to teach students lessons that are sufficiently differentiated in schools dedicated to ensuring the maximum progress of each and every pupil – proportionately more of them than ever are succeeding in their education.

Surely more young people will remain engaged if they are not written off as failures by an 11-plus exam.

I have seen my own children, after five generally happy years at a local high school and two years at local colleges, go on to achieve success at university.

It is also clear that they and their friends and peers all left school happier and better equipped than previous generations.

Compare that with what you see in selective school areas – primary age children, worn down with excessive homework set as an aid to passing school entrance examinations, doing excessive hours at home in addition to being privately tutored.

In the 25 years I have served as a high school governor and in my 15 years as chairman of the Education Committee, I have seen the quality of secondary education transformed for the benefit of all our children, the majority of whom genuinely achieve success.

The last thing we need is to turn back to the 50s/60s and reintroduce grammar schools, for the few.

We actually need to continue to improve the quality of teaching and learning for all our children.

That, according to Her Majesty’s chief inspector of schools, is what makes the real difference.

Ald Brian Wilson

Tyldesley