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.
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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. “The evidence for the overall benefits to social mobility, nobody has been able to find”.
She confirmed that she will lift restrictions requiring oversubscribed faith schools to make 50% of places available to children from other religious communities.
“We know that there are some really good comprehensive secondary schools with great leadership and we know that when our comprehensive schools work together we can raise standards across the board and that’s what we should be doing, not trying to bring in selection again”.
To push forward with new grammar schools as the centre piece of her education policy would fail that test spectacularly.
Not insignificantly, UKIP is a pro-grammar school party, and is now the main challenger in many traditionally Labour areas in the north.
“The truth is that we already have selection in our school system – and its selection by house price, selection by wealth”.
“As referred to by the Prime Minister, Eton College sponsors one of our local free schools, Holyport College, which has a commitment to providing education opportunities for local pupils and those needing additional support such as children in care and pupil premium”.
And Cabinet colleague Sir Michael Fallon – whose own constituency in Kent saw the opening of the first new grammar for half a century a year ago – denied that youngsters who miss out on selection will be consigned to “sink schools”.
Sir Peter Lampl, chairman of the Sutton Trust, said: “We welcome the expectation that grammar schools do more to attract disadvantaged pupils, building on proposals we made”.
Theresa May sought to allay the concerns of those Conservative MPs who fear that any expansion of grammar schools could leave disadvantaged children further behind.
Neil Carmichael, chair of the education select committee, seems to have become more sympathetic to the proposals, saying he was now “more content” after being initially not “impressed”.
In the perceived “golden-age” of the grammar system in the 50s, which Tory backbenchers seem to look back to through rose-tinted glasses, nearly 40 per cent of the children selected failed to achieve more than 3 O-Levels.
Her intervention prompted an angry reaction from Labour who said the new prime minister was even more out of touch than her predecessor.
“By focusing on grammar schools, the Government is choosing the least likely path to take us towards a country that works for everyone”, he said.
Theresa May has told Conservative MPs she will not “turn the clock back” on grammar schools in England, but did not rule out some expansion.
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Asked why the former education secretary Nicky Morgan, Gibb’s former boss at the Department for Education, had called it a retrograde step, the Bognor MP claimed the green paper and consultation document to be published on Monday would win over critics, without mentioning Morgan by name.
