The Education Secretary said she remained open-minded on the issue of selection and would announce the Government’s policy in due course.
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In a speech today (Friday) about school reforms across Britain, the Prime Minister stated her intentions for schools to help the country become a meritocracy.
The full details of Theresa May’s plan for new grammar schools will be “very persuasive” for Conservative opponents of the policy, the schools minister Nick Gibb has claimed.
Sir Michael Wilshaw, chief inspector of schools watchdog Ofsted, this week said the idea that poor children would benefit from a return of grammar schools was “tosh” and “nonsense”.
Public school-educated Ms Morgan, sacked by Mrs May in July, warned that increased selection by ability would be “at best a distraction from crucial reforms to raise standards and narrow the attainment gap and at worst risk actively undermining six years of progressive education reform”.
This focus on creating more “good” schools can also lead to a drain on the best teachers from other types of schools.
I want to stop restrictions to expand selective schools and in return they will contribute reasonably to help all in education.
But the announcement won a warm reaction among some Tory backbenchers, including Michael Fabricant, who said it marked a move to “meritocracy instead of the chumocracy or old boys’ network”, and Nadine Dorries, who said: “Thank God the schoolboys have gone and a grown-up is in charge”.
This theory does make sense, but then so does the argument for just calling an early election to get a proper mandate as an elected Prime Minister, and May seems to have rejected that pretty squarely.
“The debate will also be watched with interest by academy trusts which run most secondary schools in England – many are uneasy about the plans”.
“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”, May will tell Parliament.
– Write to your MP to tell them what you think about the government’s plans for the education system.
The Economist argued that children from wealthier families also have an unfair advantage as they have the means to pay for extra tuition to prep for the entrance exams required to get into these schools.
Thurrock council now has no grammars but told the Sunday Times it is committed to “attracting grammar school places”.
In Britain, the class system and the classroom are intertwined, and education reforms inevitably cause political controversy. We’ve got to… get many more children to achieve well in our schools.
Mrs May said the European Union referendum in June had exposed a “profound sense of frustration” among large sections of the population about the struggles they face – including the fight to find a good school for their children.
“I’m in favour of grammars as they assist with social mobility, taking the brightness and giving them the education they need”, he said.
Former Education Secretary Nicky Morgan told The Sun that she would be “asking how the Government will ensure that those areas of the country where results continue to be poor and expectations low, will benefit from the change in policy”.
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Reintroducing selection does not command a majority in the House of Lords, and might not in the Commons either.
