She defended the plans on Friday by highlighting potential measures to mitigate the risk that poor children – who tend to be underrepresented in existing grammars – were relegated to sink schools as selection expanded.
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The job of education in the 21st century is to maximise opportunity for the maximum number of children whatever their background.
In her first major domestic speech as Prime Minister, Theresa May has delivered a bold and radical set of proposals for education reform in the United Kingdom including the news that she intends to lift the restrictions on grammar school expansion.
But teachers’ leaders and opposition parties have argued that increasing selection will undermine the standard of education available to the majority of pupils, who would not get a place in a grammar school. In Kent, one of the few counties that still operates a grammar school system, it is 34 per cent.
Another May proposal, to allow schools set up by faith groups to select pupils on the basis of religion, was also criticized by her own side.
At a press conference at the end of last week, May made it clear that she did not intend to build a system to accommodate a return to the much maligned 11-plus and secondary modern school. Many grammar school students continue to perform exceptionally well at GCSE, A-Level and the International Baccalaureate and, as a effect, many transfer to top university destinations both in the United Kingdom and overseas.
Theresa May’s vision of a meritocratic education system in the United Kingdom, which includes lifting the ban on creating new grammar schools, has come under heavy criticism over the weekend.
The leaked memo said it needs to work with existing grammars “to show how they can be expanded and reformed in ways which avoid disadvantaging those who don’t get in”.
Plans to create new grammar schools in England will be put before the House of Commons later on Monday.
Former Business Minister Anna Soubry said there was “no desire for us to have selection” in her Notts constituency.
The ex-grammar schoolboy said: “I’ve often wondered if I had failed the 11-plus where I would be”. And why not? In all these imaginary grammar schools, the evidence is overwhelming that they improve social mobility.
Supporters of grammar schools argue that they undermine privilege. Villiers talked of her “anxiety with these proposals”, and asked how the government could guarantee grammar schools would benefit their communities. “It is time for Government to step back and take a long hard look at what is needed to ensure that all children are given the education they deserve”.
New grammar schools will be opened across the country, Theresa May is confirming today.
Neil Carmichael, the Conservative Stroud MP who chairs the Education Select Committee, warned the discussion on grammars could “distract us from our fundamental task of improving social mobility”.
Mr Roskilly, who represents almost 400 private schools, said parents were already using independent schools as an “insurance” in case their children fail to get into grammars in parts of England.
And if none of these arguments convince you then bear in mind that primary-age tests, while they have their uses in assessing progress, are very blunt instruments for deciding people’s life chances.
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Additionally, think tanks and advocacy organisations in the education sector have sounded notes of caution about the plans, commending May’s commitment to equality, but questioning her means.
