Call for Guernsey 11 plus system review, from union rep

Ms Bowker said the system left some children with "a sense of failure"

A thorough review into the future of Guernsey's 11 plus system is needed, according to a representative of a teaching union.

Caroline Bowker, local secretary of the NASUWT, said it was time to examine if the system was right for Guernsey.

She said there was a worrying perception that children "fail" when selected to go to the high schools.

It follows comments from the Education minister that there were more urgent priorities in the short term.

Ms Bowker said: "No matter how hard we try to say they haven't failed the 11 plus, the view out in the public is that they have failed."

She said this feeling held some children back in education and from achieving all they could.

A consultation into proposed changes to the selection system for secondary education ended on Thursday.

The changes had been recommended by the Mulkerrin review into secondary education, and there were 901 responses to the public consultation.

Education Minister Robert Sillars said the department needed to make the system the best it could be before any debate on its future was held.

He said improvements to the current system included the recruitment of teachers, giving head teachers control of their own budgets and updating the 1970 Education Law.