Before any child begins Comprehensive they have all been taught together at Primary school.
There they will be taught in groups of children with the same academic ability.
Streaming exists in Primary schools.
Sometimes it was possible to have three different groups of children and perhaps one or two individual children who required extra learning support.
And perhaps one or two very academic children who required extra input!
The High schools receive very detailed reports about each child and there will be comunication between both schools and teachers.
Primary children also spend several days at High School while still in Primary seven.
The High schools will be very aware from day one of each child's individual ablity.
There is no "dumbing down" for the more academic child but there is every possibility that those who would have been cast aside by the old system have every opportunity to progress.
I have no idea what the current primary system is like, so i'm not going to debate that.
My own experience at primary school was no streaming. Classes simply weren't big enough to support such a notion.
I remember one occasion when the teacher hoiked myself and one other boy up to the front of the class to have a long-division race on the blackboard.
My parents were working class with little formal education. We were never well-off, but we never went short.
My opponent came from a very large family that could only be described as dirt poor. He would often turn up dressed like a Charles Dickens ragamuffin. I don't know whether he got enough to eat.
He struggled academically, quite possibly due to his adverse family situation.
The long-division race began. I won, but only by a nose.
The teacher must have twigged that though this boy struggled with other areas of his schooling, he had a natural affinity for long division, of all things. She had given him his chance to shine.
