But speaking at the British Academy in Central London, the Prime Minister will say she is committed to tackling the existing injustice that means too few children get the chance of an academic education.
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Wirral still has six grammar schools, including West Kirby and Wirral Grammars.
Supporters of grammar schools were pleased that she seemed to be signalling there could be an expansion in areas where there is a demand for them and that a prohibition on new schools might well be lifted.
Universities that want to raise tuition fees for students will be obliged to make their expertise available to younger learners, by setting up a new school or taking over an existing failing school, for example.
Mrs May told the 1922 Committee of backbench Conservatives on Wednesday that “selection by house price” already existed within the state school system, with wealthier parents able to ensure a place for their children at high-performing schools by buying homes in the catchment area.
Under current law, it is impossible to create new grammar schools, but May claims reversing this would improve social mobility and help the “hidden” hardworking families that were “just getting by”.
“But already there has been a certain amount of selection going on in academies”. Nobody moved in or out while I was at school and so I remained at the bottom of the pile.
He added: “Social mobility is a problem but as all the evidence shows it is one that will not be addressed by selective education”.
– Read other Canary articles about government education policies here.
Labour has said the plans will “entrench inequality”.
The Prime Minister talks about social inclusion while at the same time advocating social segregation through grammar school selection.
The Government’s support for grammar schools was confirmed when a photographer snapped a Department for Education official carrying a briefing paper which outlined that a consultation document would recommend the change.
The Prime Minister has delivered a major speech today revealing all schools will get the chance to convert into a grammar under the most radical education reforms for a generation.
“Grammar schools are nothing more than window dressing”.
“We support our members in all our schools as they do an absolutely fantastic job and we must make sure that our children are not labelled as failures from an early age”.
We will fail as a nation if we only get the top 15% to 20% of our children achieving well. It is possible to have a lower score for children on free school meals.
“This is the danger of having a new Government with new leadership and new priorities, not elected by the people, now foisting their own evidence-free prejudices upon us”.
However the 11-plus system has been criticised as effectively ranking pupils according to ability and rejecting those who might not have had access to the same resources growing up.
Another Conservative MP said Ms May’s plan to re-introduce the schools could “lead to a divisive system and put the clock back on education”.
What about the children left behind by selective education?
But she was not the only one raising concerns about what could turn out to be the biggest education reforms in a fifty years.
Education reform is a personal priority of Nick Timothy, May’s chief of staff, which means that the plans announced in the Prime Minister’s speech today can not just be there for a show that says “I’m not David Cameron”.
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But t he Government’s social mobility tsar, Labour former Cabinet minister Alan Milburn, said that grammars could be “a social mobility disaster”.
