The controversial proposals will also allow other schools to introduce selection “in some circumstances”.
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New grammars are also expected to have to sponsor non-selective free schools. Past year I called this an unwelcome distraction from the real business of improving educational attainment for children from low income backgrounds across the country.
“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”.
The Government’s social mobility tsar Alan Milburn warned that grammars could be “a social mobility disaster”, while charity Teach First said: “Education experts are united that the evidence shows grammar schools harm social mobility”. That is simply unfair.
“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”, Morgan wrote in a posting on Facebook.
In a speech on Friday, Prime Minister Theresa May confirmed she would back schools which test pupils on their ability, stating she wanted Britain to be “the world’s greatest meritocracy”.
“The blight caused by academic selection at age 11 affects children’s self-worth, ambition and confidence and can last a lifetime.If she chooses to pursue this course of action Theresa May will break her promise to make “Britain a country that works for everyone, not just the privileged few”.
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.
She insists this won’t be a return to “secondary moderns” and a binary system, but hasn’t really explained why.
Labour have criticised the reforms and warned the expansion of grammar schools would “entrench inequality and disadvantage”.
A Downing Street source said: “The admissions cap had the best of intentions but it has failed in its two key tests”.
“Grammar schools select only a tiny proportion of children for the best education, leaving others with a second rate choice”.
Mrs May, who took over as prime minister following the European Union referendum in June, was also expected to say that faith schools would be allowed to admit more pupils on the basis of their religious background.
The Prime Minister is also set to face major opposition to her plans from many on her own side.
In addition, selective schools must sponsor an existing underperforming, non-selective academy school.
She added: “Instead of adopting this fundamentally flawed approach, the Prime Minister should be investing in schools for everyone, not the chosen few”.
He said that if a local authority thinks a grammar school is right for the area “then they should be allowed to bring forward those measures”.
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. Even more to the point, nearly none of the “experts” spewing out fear and loathing over the dire effect of grammar schools makes reference to the vast wastelands to the North, where their absence has been most deleterious.
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The chief inspector of schools, Sir Michael Wilshaw, has said grammar schools are “stuffed full of middle-class kids”. “My education was varied: I went to a grammar school that became a comprehensive – and for a short time I attended a private school”.
