The prime minister’s speech on education on Friday drew fire over her plan to overturn decades of policy consensus by allowing the expansion of grammar schools, which select pupils on ability.
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Ofsted head Sir Michael Wilshaw said: “My message is there’s been a turn-around in state education because of reforms and we don’t want to put that at risk”.
I want to stop restrictions to expand selective schools and in return they will contribute reasonably to help all in education.
Mrs May should instead build on the academy and free school reforms pursued under David Cameron, which were creating “a truly comprehensive school system in which every child is able to achieve excellence”, the former education secretary said.
But numerous Conservative backbenchers, including former cabinet heavyweights, spoke of their concerns in a sign that the Prime Minister could face a hard task in pushing the proposals through Parliament. All of the actual evidence shows that grammar schools increase social inequality rather than reduce it.
Independent schools will have to play a bigger part in supporting state schools or sponsoring free schools, in return for maintaining their charitable status.
Selective schools will have to meet targets on how many pupils they have from poor families or set up new open access schools and help failing institutions, under the reforms being set out by the Prime Minister. She repeatedly stressed that the changes were meant to help “ordinary working-class families”. “This is the plan to deliver them and to set Britain on the path to being the great meritocracy of the world”. I want every child to have the kind of opportunities that I enjoyed.
“Grammar schools select only a tiny proportion of children for the best education, leaving others with a second-rate choice”, it continued.
Instead, Mrs May said her reforms were created to provide “a good school place for every child and one that caters for their individual needs”.
I have yet to speak to anybody who is in support of this proposal.
“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”, May said.
Plans to lift Labour’s ban on new grammar schools in England are due to be announced by Prime Minister Theresa May in a move that is already proving divisive among politicians.
Mrs May said the European Union referendum in June had exposed a “profound sense of frustration” among large sections of the population about the struggles they face – including the fight to find a good school for their children.
Angela Rayner, Labour’s shadow education secretary, said Mrs May’s policy could be summed up as “shambolic”.
“No child’s life chances should be defined by a test they sit at the age of 11. 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”.
Former Tory whip Keith Simpson said he had “severe reservations” about more grammar schools.
Grammars will be required to establish or sponsor a primary feeder school in an area with a high density of lower income households or to sponsor a now underperforming non-selective academy.
The ex-grammar schoolboy said: “I’ve often wondered if I had failed the 11-plus where I would be”.
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Sam Freedman, of the charity Teach First said: “Education experts are united that the evidence shows grammar schools harm social mobility”.
