For bureaucrats it would make reporting and accounting so much simpler to have a qualification system in which everyone could be sifted sorted

For bureaucrats, it would make reporting and accounting so much simpler to have a qualification system in which everyone could be sifted, sorted and classified on the same scale Fine, perhaps, for those at the top. Trying to raise the school-leaving age to 18 through the qualifications system is putting the cart before the horse. We can imagine the likely detrimental effects – Tomlinson himself envisages some students scrambling up his ladder to collect all the badges by the age of 16, then having to fill in time before going to their chosen university. They can best be helped on their way through an array of awards such as we have now, rather than bundling them all up in one qualification.Behind the Tomlinson proposals may lie the intention to keep young people in compulsory education and training to age 18, in which case the idea should be debated on its merits rather than just sneaked in.

So long as the requirement is for young people to remain in education to age 16, there needs to be a good national system of examinations at that age, which can be celebrated in its own terms, rather than being regarded as a lesser part of something else.After the age of 16, young people want to progress in different directions according to their growing understanding of their abilities, interests and aspirations. There are also some welcome ideas for improving vocational qualifications. But these necessary reforms have been subsumed into an elaborate four-tier structure of diplomas covering the ages 14 to 19. The much-heralded Tomlinson proposals for reforming school examinations seem to be more showcase than substance. There are some very sensible suggestions for rectifying the current weaknesses of A-levels – for example, bypassing AS-level exams and providing more detailed information to universities. It is unworkable because it neither fits a coherent phase in education, nor maps the needs of young people. The proposed hierarchy spans both the final years of compulsory education and the two years beyond.

“What this does is to put us in the position of being able to create a really great city coeducational academic day school.”The move has been widely welcomed. Only a tiny handful of parents have raised objections, and both heads have been contacted by colleagues interested in taking their own schools down the same road.education independent.co.uk. Plus, when they get together in the sixth form, the girls will be academically confident enough to take on any challenge.”The diamond model allows the schools to hang on to their reputations for good single-sex schooling, while getting all the advantages of becoming a big, 2,500-pupil coeducational school, with great resources, a broad curriculum and the ability to attract pupils even in the shrinking marketplace of a dropping birth rate.”Also, when the great wave of teachers crashes on the retirement shore in six or seven years’ time, we’ll have a much better chance of recruiting good, well-qualified people in shortage areas such as maths,” says Mark Bailey, the head teacher of the grammar school. “That way they’ll get the best of both worlds – and a good classroom environment during those critical adolescent years. A good coeducational school is a much better way to educate people for the 21st century.”A NEW EDUCATIONAL ORDER: HOW ‘THE DIAMOND’ WORKSThe boys-only Leeds Grammar School and Leeds Girls’ High School are to merge by 2007, but instead of jumping into coeducation they are opting – as are more and more single-sex schools – for the “diamond” model. This offers a mixed junior school and sixth form, but teaches pupils separately during the hormone-laden years of puberty.”All the taught curriculum will be separate in those years, although boys and girls will have a lot of other activities like drama and music in common,” says Sue Fishburn, the head of the high school.

The merging schools in Leeds (see below) are “going diamond”, and it is likely that the Perse schools in Cambridge will follow suit.But to proponents of coeducation such as Latymer’s Mr Winter it makes no sense at all “To me, it’s unnatural to separate children I don’t buy the arguments. We have them separate while the girls accelerate to 14 and then the boys start to catch up again. And the results show in the sixth form when they all come together. We have lots of girls who are good at science and maths, and lots of boys taking French modern languages.”Other diamond schools can be found scattered around the country – north-east London and Newcastle upon Tyne both have them – and interest in the pattern is growing.