School -eughhh!

Schooling very much in the news at present - particularly as the new Prime Minister  has nailed her colours to the mast of grammar schools.  At the risk of appearing to be reactionary, can I suggest that our attitude to education is, and to an extent always has been based on a false premise - that children want to learn?  Now, many if not most of them do, but as any schoolteacher will tell you, there are those who simply have no interest in learning - at least, not in learning what the school wants to teach them. These are the disruptive pupils who don't want to be there, and are simply getting through the day as best they can waiting to be able to go back home.  So, are we simply wasting everybody's time by forcing them to attend school?  Many of them are smart kids who are well capable of making their way in the world without any formal education - and some may come to education later in life.  Not sure our "one size fits all" attitude to schooling really suits those at either of the extreme ends of the intellectual spectrum, and if we're going down the grammar school line for those at the top end, what about those at the bottom end?