THE CITY OF OXFORD HIGH SCHOOL MAGAZINE VoL. LI, ii MARCH 1959 No. 165
Commentary from the Old Oxford Citizens’ Society
It is possible that some Old Boys particularly remote from Oxford may not yet be familiar with the angry controversy that is raging over the future of the City of Oxford School.
In the 1946 development plan for education the agreed proposal was for coeducational secondary modern schools to be built at Marston and at Summertown in Marston Ferry Road. The City of Oxford School was also to be located in Marston Ferry Road with new buildings but with its present status i.e. a Grammar School, though possibly with a three rather than the present two stream entry (i.e.ninety rather than sixty new boys each year). The Marston school —Northway — has been built and is functioning but a new proposal concerning the other two has been made by the Education Sub-Committee. It is that the boys from the proposed Summertown secondary modern school and those from Northway. should be joined to the new City of Oxford School; that a road bridge should be constructed across the Cherwell at Marston Ferry and that Northway should remain a secondary modern school but for girls only. Northway does not seem particularly enamoured of the scheme, but the principal debate has concerned the possible damage or benefit, certainly the violent alteration, which such plans would involve for the City of Oxford School.
The most vocal overt supporters of the scheme are Ald. Marcus Lower and Ald. F. V. Pickstock supported by Coun. Edmund Gibbs (O.O.C.S.) and CounL. F. Ford (O.O.C.S. elect). It is a quaint chance which has placed two of the very few Old Boys who have mustered enthusiasm for the proposals so much in the public eye.
The Education Sub-Committee invited public comment on the proposals and one of the first responses came from the Old Oxford Citizens Society. Acting upon the unanimous consent of the Com-mittee, the President and Secretary issued a statement on behalf of the Society which was reported in full in the local press on Jan. 27th. It placed on record the Society’s ‘unqualified disapproval of the projected bilateral scheme’ together with the reasons for it. This together with some other early and lively expressions of disapproval, provoked a protracted and acrimonious discussion in the columns of the Oxford Mail and Oxford Times. At an early date Coun. Gibbs in a letter questioned the seeming unanimity of opposition among Old Boys to the plan, but at an unusually well attended Annual General Meeting of the Society on Feb. 27th, a resolution was passed supporting the action of the Committee in objecting to the scheme and assuring it of members’ support in its continued objection, the only dissenting vote being that of Coun. Gibbs.
It is difficult to take a dispassionate view of the matter especially since the Lower faction, having invited comment, has chosen to dismiss opposing views as either derived from prejudice or motivated by snobbery. The opinion has been set afoot that the almost unanimous objection of Old Boys, Parents, Schoolmasters both within and without the School, and for that matter the Boys, is of little consequence since they are bound to be prejudiced against the plan, while if a disinterested party intervenes to oppose he is branded as a snob for wishing to propogate an educational system in which the most able intellectually can be clearly distinguished from the less able. Whether the authors of the scheme are more interested in educational improvement or in sociopolitical engineering becomes increasingly a matter for speculation.
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Article by JCA Gaskin the Hon Editorial Sec OOCS