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Are grammar schools bad for Kent?

The head of one of Kent's biggest secondary schools St John's Catholic Comprehensive in Gravesend says grammars are damaging his school. There is increasing demand for grammar school places in the county and Kent County Council supports plans to extend selective education - backing plans to create a new grammar school in Sevenoaks.

Is grammar school education the best thing that ever happened to you - or your children? Or did the eleven plus system damage you and your prospects?

Are the grammars the only way we can improve social mobility - how many children from poor families go to grammar school.

John Stanley the head of St john's says grammars are just a free private education? Is he right?

What sort of school do you want for your children?

What can you recite off the top of your head? A poem? Your times tables? A Shakespeare sonnet? What did you learn at school that you can still remember today? Is it a life asset or a wast of time?

Kent's children are in the throws of revision for GCSEs, but is learning off by heart still a practised and valued skill?

The Dickens character Thomas Gradgrind ensured his pupils had "imperial gallons of facts poured into them until they were full to the brim".

Does it matter that there has been a decline in children learning things by heart? It is the information age, remember, and if it is all on a phone or a computer, does it need to be in our heads?

They are some professions where learning things by heart are still really important, like medicine or law and acting.

We speak to local actor, Lawrence Brown.

We hear your views and stories.

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