comprehensive school

(also infml comprehensive) n

(in Britain) a large state secondary school for boys and girls of all abilities aged 11 or over. Comprehensive schools were introduced in the 1960s to replace the system of dividing children between more academic grammar schools and less academic secondary modern schools.

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      in England, secondary school offering the curricula of a grammar school, a technical school, and a secondary modern school, with no division into separate compartments. Pupils are placed in A, B, or C “streams” according to their aptitudes and abilities. Comprehensives are similar to the large, multipurpose American high school, in which the ability grouping system is known as “tracking.”

      The purpose of the comprehensive school is to democratize education, do away with early selection procedures, and provide equal opportunity for all children. In 1975 legislation was passed in the United Kingdom to hasten the transition to this system, reflecting the long-term policy of the Labour government to organize all secondary education on a comprehensive basis. Although some comprehensive schools have been quite successful, the transition has been slow, and the issue is complicated by mixed attitudes toward the long-revered public schools and strong residual devotion to the traditional grammar school system. Compare grammar school; public school.

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