CompÌýis a major four-part series for ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Radio 4 about the history of the comprehensive school.ÌýPresented by Evan Davis, who himself experienced the transition from grammar to comprehensive while at school in the Seventies, Comp reveals the surprising history the most controversial upheaval in English and Welsh education since the end of the Second World War.
AÌýmajor Radio 4 project which talks to pupils, teachers, parents - and politicians - from three generations, to explore why an apparently simple idea - everyone in one area goes to school together - has been such a long-running source of strife. Was it malicious social engineering - or educational fairness for all? And do specialist schools really herald a "post-comprehensive era" or the evolution, even triumph, of the original idea?
With visits to schools from Surrey to Coventry and from London to Holyhead - to meet some of the first ever comprehensive school pupils in England and Wales, and voices including Kenneth Baker,Ìý Stuart Maclure, Christopher Chataway, Shirley Williams, Roy Hattersley, Susan Crosland, Melissa Benn, Brian Cox, Nigel Williams and Andrew Adonis, Comp will be a revelation to anyone who thinks the popular myths about the comprehensive are the whole story
