Morgan, whom May sacked on becoming prime minister, suggested the controversial plan would make “a rigorous academic education does not need to be the preserve of the few”.
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The prime minister said she wanted “an element of selection” in the education system, but that new grammar schools would not be forced on areas that did not want them.
In the biggest shake-up of the British education system for 50 years, hundreds of comprehensive schools will be given the go ahead to select the brightest pupils and reject under-achievers under plans to be announced by the prime minister on Friday (9 September).
Instead, Mrs May said her reforms were created to provide “a good school place for every child and one that caters for their individual needs”.
She will say: “For too long we have tolerated a system that contains an arbitrary rule preventing selective schools from being established – sacrificing children’s potential because of dogma and ideology”.
In well-trailed proposals, she said parents would be able to set up selective free schools, existing state schools would be allowed to convert in the right circumstances and current grammars permitted to expand.
CONCERNS have been raised that the debate around opening new grammar schools is a distraction from the “real problems” schools are facing across East Lancashire.
May’s plans will form part of a wider package of education reforms, including an attempt to narrow the gap between universities and the schools system. And is her claim that children from other schools could go to grammar schools for certain lessons actually practical?
Dave Hill, president of the Association of Directors of Children’s Services, warned of the impact of selection on children living in care.
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Grammar schools are popular with most relocating families however, as they typically offer an excellent standard of education.
“We’ve got to, if we’re going to compete with the best in the world, get many more children to achieve well in our schools”.
However, Mrs May’s policy announcement is also a gamble on a fight with teachers and the educational establishment, who firmly believe the benefits of grammar schools were outweighed by the lack of educational attainment in secondary modern schools. “I strongly oppose 100 percent faith schools and will be voting against religious segregation of our children”, Conservative lawmaker Sarah Wollaston said on Twitter. [Grammar schools] may want children to be learning two or three languages, they may want a more knowledge rich, a more intensive academic education that goes way beyond the curriculum that is delivered by the GCSEs.
It will not signal a “return to the simplistic binary choice of the past, where schools separate children into winners and losers, successes or failures”.
“I was incredibly lucky when I was a young girl growing up”, she said.
Labour’s shadow education secretary Angela Rayner said: “By enshrining selection into our education system the prime minister is wilfully ignoring the overwhelming evidence that selection at 11 leads to a more unequal country”.
“Tutoring is a £2 billion industry, 20% of which is tutoring for grammar school entry”. We know they are good for the pupils that attend them.
“I want a good education for every child”, he said.
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“I want to see grammar schools continue to improve themselves and I would like us to be able to learn and to look at the curriculum that is being taught in the grammar schools to see if we can adopt some of that curriculum in comprehensive schools”, he added.
