Nicky Morgan, who was sacked by the Prime Minister as Education Secretary in July, has warned her colleague’s big idea to bring back state grammar schools in England – there are none in Scotland and Wales – was “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”.
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But it was her bid to allow more single faith schools and selective “grammar” schools that caused uproar in Britain, where governments have tried to phase out academic selection of children to end what is described as a 1950s two-tier system.
The prime minister has said that the expansion of existing grammars and the opening of new selective schools will be accompanied by quotas to ensure that poorer pupils are not excluded.
While the government is expected to announce measures to avoid new grammar schools being disproportionately colonised by children from better-off backgrounds, as tends to happen with existing examples, May faces significant opposition to the plans.
“This is not a proposal to go back to a binary model of grammars and secondary moderns, but to build on our increasingly diverse schools system”, May said in her speech at the British Academy in London.
Nicky Morgan, who was education secretary under May’s predecessor David Cameron, said after the speech that she continues to oppose the extension of academic selection for schools, suggesting May will find it hard to get the change through Parliament.
Each circle is a secondary school in England (not Wales or Scotland).
The legal precedent for allowing existing grammars to expand was established a year ago by Weald of Kent School in Tonbridge, which is to open a “new” 450-place school on a satellite site in Sevenoaks.
What is the evidence base on which you’re making the argument for new selective schools?
It nearly makes one nostalgic for the return of Michael Gove, who recognised that reintroducing grammar schools would be a retrograde step that would make no contribution to raising the standards of the system as a whole.
“There is no convincing evidence to suggest that a return to selection will promote educational achievement, particularly for those from more disadvantaged backgrounds”. She has a Commons working majority of just 17.
But the plans have already come in for widespread criticism, including from Ofsted chief inspector Sir Michael Wilshaw, who said they would “turn the clock back”.
“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”. We know they are good for the pupils that attend them.
Noting that Mr Cameron said in 2007 that rejecting calls for grammars was a “key test” of whether the Tories were fit for office, Mr Ashworth said: “It’s utterly ludicrous for Theresa May to stand up and talk about creating a “great meritocracy” and then in the next breath announce a return to grammar schools”.
The government will set out its proposals to allow new grammar schools today (Monday) amid signs that the policy continues to split opinion. That’s the comprehensive school education I have described above.
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“Labour wants the best for all our children, not just the lucky few the Tories care about”, Ashworth said.
