THE president of the National Union of Teachers, Tony Brockman, has lent his weight to the anti-grammar school campaign now underway in Buckinghamshire.

About 30 people attended a meeting of Bucks Parents for Comprehensive Education in Aylesbury last week to hear Mr Brockman say that children at comprehensive schools did as well or better than those where there was selection at 11-plus, and that selection was socially divisive. The county's 13 grammar schools are among 164 left in the country.

Grammar-school-educated Mr Brockman said he had lost many friends after he went to grammar school.

He said every child in the country had the right to fulfil his true potential and added that selection was unfair. Mr Brockman claimed the 11-plus process was riddled with errors.

He added statistical research into the relative merits of comprehensives and grammar schools had been carried out, which showed comprehensive education was preferable, but neither the media or politicians used it.

People at the meeting said the 11-plus discriminated against children who did not have English as their first language, and that failure had a depressing effect on children.

They said parents fought to get their primary children into the best schools so they would get a better chance of the 11-plus, and that upper schools were deprived of cash compared with grammar schools. In order to trigger a ballot on the subject of getting rid of grammar schools, campaigners have first to raise a petition with 18,450 signatures calling for it. They have until August to get the numbers.

Cllr Mike Appleyard, Buckinghamshire County Council's cabinet member for schools, told the Free Press he thought the meeting was more a call to the converted than an open debate.

He added that there was no data which proved comprehensively which system was better, and on that basis he was not prepared to change.