Suddenly discussions about education are all about whether to increase the role of selection and grammar schools.
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Last week Mrs May announced sweeping school reforms that would allow all schools to convert to a grammar or selective school, including existing state comprehensives and academies.
The prime minister said she wanted “an element of selection” in the education system, but that new grammar schools would not be forced on areas that did not want them.
It follows a long-running campaign to provide selective places in the town, launched by parents who said pupils had to travel long distances to take up grammar school places.
But critics say allowing new grammar schools means creating a two tier system, and risks children being branded as “failures” at the age of 11.
The truth is that those children at the remaining grammar schools today are overwhelmingly the lucky few whose parents can afford tuition for the 11 Plus – and the Sutton Trust has recently revealed that a fifth of paid tuition in England and Wales is for the grammar school entrance exam. When Justine Greening gave her statement in the Commons this afternoon, she repeated numerous Prime Minister’s own lines about selection already existing through house prices and so on.
The head of Ofsted has ripped into Theresa May’s plans to lift the ban on new grammar schools, saying the nation would “fail” if it were to return to a selective system.
Chris Keates, general secretary of the NASUWT, said: “Rather than becoming consumed in a debate about even more educationally and socially divisive changes to the structure of our school system, The Prime Minister should focus on tackling the deep educational inequalities which are the legacy of her predecessor”.
Mr Ireson said ministers had to “think about those children who aren’t going to the grammar school” and what they would need.
One particular benefit that isn’t often acknowledged, but is clear from Salisbury’s experience, is the scope for grammar schools to have large sixth forms.
“And in Northern Ireland too, where grammar school education has just been given renewed political backing by the DUP education secretary”.
Founder Rev Steve Chalke said he welcomed Mrs May’s goal of increasing social mobility, but said “any attempt to sift and separate students at 11 years old can only be counter-productive”. I want every child to have the kind of opportunities that I enjoyed. Most obviously, the government would like academy chains to sponsor or build new grammar schools – and some chains may see it as a way of reviving struggling schools. Under current law, it is impossible to create new grammar schools, but May claims reversing this would improve social mobility and help the “hidden” hardworking families that were “just getting by”. Selective state schools have produced some of the best performances in exam league tables.
Britain’s Chief Inspector of Schools Michael Wilshaw.
“So I want to relax the restrictions that stop selective schools from expanding, that deny parents the right to have a new selective school opened where they want one, and that stop existing non-selective schools to become selective in the right circumstances and where there is demand”, she said.
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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.
