The Prime Minister’s announcement at a private meeting of Conservative MPs that she wants education “with an element of selection”, while Education Secretary Justine Greening said it “can play a role”.
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The prime minister will also allow the existing 163 grammar schools to expand, while changing the law so that a new generation can open.
The Chief Inspector of Schools, Sir Michael Wilshaw, seems to base his vituperation nearly entirely on the fact that schools in the capital have improved without the need for selection – which leads him to the quite groundless conclusion that introducing more grammars would reverse this progress by removing bright children from existing schools.
She posted on Facebook: “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 risk actively undermining six years of progressive education reform”.
BBC education editor Branwen Jeffreys said the government could struggle to get the plans through parliament with divisions within the Conservative party already becoming apparent.
Teaching unions and the Labour party have also voiced criticism.
The PM also said independent schools, which had “become more and more divorced from normal life”, would face a tougher test of public benefit in order to maintain their charitable status.
In her first speech in the United Kingdom since taking over from David Cameron, she will outline proposals for selective schools to take a certain quota of pupils from lower-income families.
“I want Britain to be the world’s great meritocracy – a country where everyone has a fair chance to go as far as their talent and their hard work will allow”, she said.
But Mr Godsiff said he was nearly a victim of the selective education system when he failed his 11 Plus exam as a child and was sent to a “central school”.
Lincolnshire NUT Divisional Secretary Ken Rustidge said that he was concerned about how the proposals would impact on non-grammar schools in the county.
The Tory Education Secretary confirmed to MPs today that she was looking at scrapping the ban on new grammar schools.
“It is a future in which every child should have access to a good school place”.
May said she wanted “a diversity of provision for every child” so they could receive an education that was right for them.
“My fear is that by dividing children at 11 and by creating grammars and secondary moderns – because that’s what we’ll do – we won’t be able to achieve that ambition”. Internationally the pattern is nearly uniform – countries with selection at 11 have education systems which are more socio-economically segregated than those which don’t. Comprehensive state education, has for decades, provided a high quality education and to all children regardless of class, family income, religion or race.
‘This is about being unapologetic for our belief in social mobility and making this country a true meritocracy – a country that works for everyone, ‘ she was due to say.
Mrs May told the 1922 Committee of backbench Tory MPs on Wednesday that “selection by house price” already existed within the state system, with wealthy parents able to get a place for their children at the best schools by buying homes in the catchment area.
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The Redditch MP, who went to a grammar, said her opposition was based on her own experience of the two-tier system.
