Forever Plowden: The Primary Schools Available to Purchase

The ILEA primary sector employs 8600 teachers for 239 640 children from every economic/ social/ethnic grouping in London. It is vast and the schools are numerous: 882, various: ranging from St Jude's to Evelyn Lowe, and subject to every kind of educational/social condition. Unlike the primary population in all but a few notably comprehensive authorities — Bristol, and Coventry to name two — they do not have the overall problem of selection. In theory at least they should all have the opportunity of avoiding the two ends of the educational hazard scale: the sub‐standard secondary modern or the small, inadequate grammar school. In fact they don't but the majority will continue in eminently, adequate and often long established comprehensives.