"It may not be appropriate to use calculators for the whole of the maths test paper, but it is a retrograde step to ban them completely as it will diminish the skills set for primary pupils and leave them floundering in secondaryschool".
Battersea, a London borough on the south bank of the Thames, for example, lacks sufficient state secondaryschool places to meet demand, and children must either leave the area or their parents pay to send them to private schools.
To glimpse one possible future, look at Parkside Community College, a popular secondaryschool in central Cambridge that takes most of the 12-year-olds who leave Newnham Croft.