THE head of Herefordshire’s School’s Forum has branded a UKIP candidate's plans to bring back the county’s grammar school system as “madness”.

Whitecross High School head Denise Strutt dismissed Jonathan Oakton’s big stance on education as archaic and ill-suited to the rural nature of Herefordshire.

Last week Mr Oakton announced that should he win the North Herefordshire seat at next year’s election, he would look to reinstate Leominster’s grammar school, which closed in the 1970s.

The grammar school system is still in force in Worcestershire – where Mr Oakton lives – and would require any prospective student to take an entrance exam, similar to the old ’11-plus’.

However, Ms Strutt categorically disputed its potential to improve education in Herefordshire.

She said: “Herefordshire is well served by good high schools.

“In a very rural authority, introducing a system where more children have to be bussed away from their homes to a school further away because, on one day in year six, they didn’t make the grade, is madness.

“Does he have a plan for what he’s going to do for the non Grammar school students or just write them off at 11 because they failed some test?”

Mr Oakton sees grammar schools as redressing the social imbalance created by fee-paying schools, like his alma-mater Bromsgrove School, which currently charges boarders more than £10,000 a term.

He said: “Poor people don’t have the advantages of the ‘Eton elite’.

“Bromsgrove gave me the self-esteem to say my piece for right or wrong.

“My children both went to comprehensives in Worcestershire and I was quite appalled.

“There are 198 grammar schools in the country and I want all of Herefordshire to have to opportunity to attend one.”

Grammar school funding, added Mr Oakton, would come from existing schools’ budgets – with a large part of school funding directly linked to how many pupils it has.

This year’s GCSE results saw success across the county with some school achieving their best-ever scores.

Earl Mortimer College – located in Leominster – was last year awarded a ‘Good’ rating by Ofsted for the first time, and for the fifth consecutive year saw an improvement in students’ GCSE results.

And, last December, Ofsted chief Sir Michael Wilshaw took aim at false claims that modern-day grammar schools improve social mobility – with just three per cent of grammar school students last year qualifying for free school meals.

Sir Michael told the Observer: "Anyone who thinks grammar schools are going to increase social mobility needs to look at those figures.

“The grammar schools might do well with 10 per cent of the school population, but everyone else does really badly.

“What we have to do is make sure all schools do well in the areas in which they are located."