Engaging with pupils on grammar schools
Most pupils who take the 11+ exam fail, but little is known about how they make sense of this experience, and its impact upon them. This project sought to plug this gap.
The grammar school system remains a divisive topic within education policy in England. There is highly polarised debate, centred usually around social mobility and social injustice. But pupils’ perspectives rarely appear within such dialogue.
In her PhD research, Dr Francesca McCarthy explored the lived experiences and perspectives of pupils who take and fail the grammar school entrance test (the “11+”). Her findings addressed the fact that pupils’ perspectives are underrepresented in both academic and wider literature on the topic and demonstrated that pupils expressed nuanced perspectives which blurred the established binary of viewpoints on the grammar school system.
Talking about the experience of failure
For her fellowship, Dr McCarthy worked in collaboration with artist Josh Knowles to develop a visual resource, “See What I’m Saying”, via a series of interactive discussion groups with pupils from non-selective schools within a grammar school area, who had taken and not passed the 11+. Whilst the pupils were discussing events described by participants in the original research, Josh drew their conversation, resulting in images which were shared with the pupils and their school. It shares pupils’ stories and demonstrates how pupils were helped to contextualise experiences of failure.
The research explored pupils’ lived experiences of the grammar school system. At times, they accepted instances of inequity without challenge, conceptualising them as elements of education which were beyond question. However, their lived experiences also provided them with a critical awareness of how inequity operated within education.
Impact in the school
The creation of images to record discussions allowed the participating pupils to see their contributions immediately and therefore avoid the delays associated with the compilation of a written report. This stimulated discussions, but also increased the levels of engagement. In addition, the images provided participants with a tangible outcome of their discussions. The deputy head confirmed how the images have been utilised as a teaching resource across the school and have significantly developed the school’s approach to raising pupil expectations.
Impact at a national level
The images also provided a means of sharing pupils’ viewpoints to a wider audience, via social media. They have been featured by the campaign group Comprehensive Future and by Times Up for the Test. Dr Nuala Burgess, Chair of Comprehensive Future commented:
Dr McCarthy’s study is unique and offers insights into how children feel about a system that tells them they have failed before they have even stepped foot in secondary school.
Dr McCarthy was invited to contribute to a campaign video for Times Up for The Test and presented the images at the group’s crossparty launch event. She has subsequently acted as a consultant to the Widening Participation team at King’s College London in 2023, providing guidance on supporting pupils who take and do not pass the 11+ to apply for higher tariff universities.
About the academic
Dr Francesca McCarthy is a Research Fellow in the Department of Curriculum, Pedagogy and Assessment at IOE. Francesca’s research draws upon the sociology of education to explore the intersectional social inequalities related to academically selective education. As a former secondary school teacher, She has a strong interest in methodological approaches that research with, rather than on, young people. [2022–23 cohort]