page_title: Direct grant grammar school
section_title: Types of schools
hierarchical_section_title: Direct grant grammar school / Types of schools
caption_attribution_description: English: Leeds Grammar School Situated on Moorlands Road it was built in 1858-59 by E.M Barry; now used as The University Business School.
context_page_description: A direct grant grammar school was a type of selective secondary school in England and Wales that existed between 1945 and 1976. One quarter of the places in these schools were directly funded by central government, while the remainder attracted fees, some paid by the Local Education Authority and some by the parents of pupils; the amounts were set according to ability to pay. On average, the schools received just over half of their income from the state.
  The status was introduced by the Education Act 1944 as a modification of an existing direct grant scheme to privately endowed schools. There were 179 direct grant grammar schools, which, together with over 1,200 grammar schools maintained by local authorities, formed the most academic tier of the Tripartite System. They varied greatly in size and composition, but, on average, achieved higher academic results than either maintained grammar schools or independent schools.
  State secondary education was reorganised on comprehensive lines in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The direct grant was phased out from 1975 and the schools were required to choose between becoming maintained comprehensive schools or fully independent schools.
context_section_description: There was a great deal of variation between direct grant grammar schools.
  According to the Donnison Report (discussed in the next section), the schools were of four types, though the boundaries between them were not always clear-cut.
  Donnison called the first group "regional schools": large, highly academically selective day schools with large sixth forms, located near large cities, and mostly boys' schools belonging to the Headmaster's Conference.
  The archetype of the direct grant grammar school, was the largest, Manchester Grammar School, whose High Master from 1945 to 1962, Eric James (elevated to the peerage in 1959), was an outspoken advocate of the "meritocracy".
  In 1968 the school sent 77% of its boys on to university, a rate surpassed only by the independent Winchester College.
  Close behind were such schools as Bradford Grammar School, Leeds Grammar School, Haberdashers' Aske's School and Latymer Upper School.
  A large girls' school of similar academic attainment was North London Collegiate School, which had been founded in 1850 by Frances Buss.
  These schools achieved university admission rates that rivalled the older public schools, which in turn moved to raise their academic standards for admission, and to increase their focus of academic achievement.
  With their high profile, such schools formed the popular image of a direct grant grammar school, but they accounted for only about a quarter of them.
  The second group consisted of 30 schools (23 for boys and 7 for girls) with a significant proportion (over 25%) of boarders.
  Boarders made up the majority of pupils at 15 schools (all but one for boys),
  including five of the six Methodist schools.
  Boarding schools tended to be smaller and less academically selective than other direct grant schools, and to take a larger proportion of fee-paying pupils.
  They also tended to be more socially selective, with nearly three quarters of their pupils having fathers in management or the professions.
  The third group, Roman Catholic schools, made up nearly a third of the direct grant schools (19 for boys and 37 for girls).
  They were predominantly day schools, though 10 of them took a small proportion of boarders.
  Their fees were about 15% lower than other direct grant grammars, and they tended to take a much higher proportion of LEA-funded pupils.  In 1968, 40 of these schools took over 80% of their pupils from their LEAs; the average proportion was 86%.
  They also tended to be more socially mixed, with 37% of their pupils from managerial and professional homes and 16% children of semi-skilled or unskilled workers.
  These schools were thus similar to the LEA-maintained Roman Catholic grammar schools, whom they outnumbered.
  Lacking endowments and having lower fee income, they were less financially secure than other direct grant grammars.
  The fourth group were non-denominational local grammar schools, often with an intake more able on average than in maintained grammar schools, but covering a broader range.
  These included the 23 schools of the Girls' Public Day School Trust (now the Girls' Day School Trust).
caption: Leeds Grammar School, a school of over 1,000 boys (later merged with the girls school)
exif: {}