HEADTEACHERS of five of Kent’s leading non-selective schools have publicly called on the Government to scrap the 11-plus, saying it wrongly labels young children as failures.

The heads have written an open letter urging the government to include a move to end the 11-plus as part of its forthcoming education reforms.

Education secretary Ruth Kelly has insisted that such a move would be a distraction after she came under fire on the matter from party activists at Labour’s Spring Conference at the weekend.

But in a direct challenge to ministers, the Kent heads say the county’s selective system would be unfairly bolstered by the reforms planned by Ms Kelly.

The five include Derek Adam, the headteacher of Tenterden’s Homewood School, Kent’s largest secondary, as well as Ian Bauckham, the headteacher of the Bennett Memorial School in Tunbridge Wells, the county’s most successful non-selective school.

The three other signatories to the letter are the heads of Mascalls School in Paddock Wood, St Gregory’s in Tunbridge Wells and St Edmund’s School in Dover.

In the letter, the five say ministers have an "historical opportunity" to scrap the 11-plus.

It states: "The 11-plus dominates secondary education in Kent, perpetrating social division and unjustly labelling a large proportion of the county’s young people as failures at the age of ten, which negatively impacts on their educational success and life chances. Greater autonomy for individual schools as envisaged by the White Paper, would only serve to bolster the unfair selective system in Kent while the 11-plus continues to be permitted."

The letter goes on: "We believe the Government must now move to stop front-door selection as well as back-door selection."

Meanwhile, the Kent anti-selection campaign group STEP - Stop The Eleven Plus - has challenged Mr Blair to explain his claim that "the forgotten reality is that grammar schools denied choice to the vast majority of parents."

In a letter to the Prime Minister, STEP supporters have accused Mr Blair of turning a blind eye to the detrimental impact of Kent’s selective system. They say: "The uncomfortable truths which led to dismantling selection continue to pervade every aspect of school life for children in Kent. If the Government is really serious about social inclusion and giving each child a fair start, it must end the 11-plus in those areas where it still exists."