“That means we need more great schools”.
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There is widespread agreement that a selective system sidelines poor children, and benefits those who pass the 11-plus at the expense of those who fail it. This could involve taking a proportion of pupils from lower-income backgrounds or opening a “feeder” primary school in disadvantaged areas.
The premier will dismiss Labour’s opposition to selection as sacrificing children’s potential for “dogma and ideology”.
“However I am concerned that they are not being used for the goal they were created for – which is to give children from poorer backgrounds a better chance at life”.
I believe that an increase in pupil segregation on the basis of academic selection would be at best a distraction from crucial reforms to raise standards and narrow the attainment gap, and at worse risks actively undermining six years of progressive education reform.
“But already there has been a certain amount of selection going on in academies. That is simply unfair”, May said.
On bringing back grammar schools, she claimed that: “this is not a proposal to go back to a binary model of grammars and secondary moderns”.
New grammars are also expected to have to sponsor non-selective free schools.
Not insignificantly, UKIP is a pro-grammar school party, and is now the main challenger in many traditionally Labour areas in the north.
Ms Greening was forced to the despatch box by an urgent question from her Labour shadow Angela Rayner, who warned MPs that an expansion of grammar schools would “entrench inequality and disadvantage”.
A Downing Street source said: “The admissions cap had the best of intentions but it has failed in its two key tests”.
“These schools have become more and more divorced from normal life”, May said in a speech in London.
“But it has prevented new Catholic schools from opening, which are more successful, more popular and more ethnically diverse than other types of state school”.
The Conservatives are toying with the introduction of quotas to prevent the harshest edges of existing grammar schools, but until the detail of those plans is known, it looks very much like a policy created to please the segment of Conservative voters who look back on their own time at grammar school with fond memories.
In another move set to spark controversy, Mrs May confirmed she will lift restrictions requiring oversubscribed faith schools to make 50% of places available to children from other religious communities.
He said: “These are very early stages, there has been no consultation process or legislation made, but I think it would have a knock-on impact for Southend”. For example, King’s College London opened a specialist sixth form college – King’s College London Mathematics School – which takes young people from across London who can demonstrate exceptional mathematics talent.
“So we are looking at how we can make sure that that test is a very open one that able children, whatever their background, can get through”.
Chalke said: “I welcome the Prime Minister’s goal of increasing social mobility for the poorest in society, but any attempt to sift and separate students at 11 years old can only be counter-productive to this”.
Even those who have supported the drive to create academies, or change how teachers are recruited, are taken aback.
“But the only place it has got us to is a place where selection exists if you’re wealthy – if you can afford to go private – but doesn’t exist if you’re not”, she said.
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Nicky Morgan, who was education secretary under May’s predecessor David Cameron, said after the speech that she continues to oppose the extension of academic selection for schools, suggesting May will find it hard to get the change through Parliament.
