In secondary schooling, size matters

It's interesting that the debate on school standards is now switching to the size of secondary schools, because for some time I've thought that the large intakes of secondary schools are a far more significant factor than what they are called or who funds them.

In this, the circumstantial evidence seems pretty conclusive: our primary schools, which typically educate between 100 and 300 pupils have come on leaps and bounds since 1997: reading, writing and mathematics scores are all significantly up, class sizes well down - and as I reported here, standards in Putney Primaries are high.

Something happens when kids get to Secondary School. What is the biggest factor likely to influence - and impede - progress? For me, it is the culture shock for 11 year olds overnight going from a school of 150 to one of possibly ten times that size. A secondary school must, by definition, be less personal, more daunting and surely a less effective learning environment.

The Conservatives are among the latest to come out against super-sized schools, but their opposition is confined to the very biggest schools of possibly 2,000 or more pupils. I agree with them that these are far too big. But unlike them, I think 500 is too large. I think we need secondary schools of broadly similar size to our primaries.

The argument against is that secondaries teach differently - with subject classes rather than year-group teaching. Such a system makes small secondary schools impractical. My response is that, with smaller secondary schools we'd have far more such institutions: twenty or thirty in an area like Putney rather than three or four as we have now.

One interesting idea is to organise these schools in a campus structure similar to Universities, with particular schools in a local cluster specialising in different aspects of the curriculum. This would also help prepare students for the second upheavel many of them will face: the transfer from secondary to further or higher education. But more importantly, it could almost be guaranteed that standards will rise and far, far fewer pupils will leave school without the basic skills and abilities they'll need to face life.