The blunder that reveals May’s plans on grammar schools
She’ll allow new ones to open, says document accidentally displayed by a top civil servant
THERESA May is to sweep away the ban on the opening of new grammar schools which has frustrated parents for almost two decades.
The Prime Minister will also permit the expansion of existing grammars to help families struggling to find good schools.
The plans will be unveiled next week but details leaked out yesterday when – in an astonishing gaffe – the most senior Department for Education mandarin was pictured carrying sensitive details into No 10.
They will face ferocious opposition from many in the Left-wing education establishment, who claim the move will turn the clock back to the 1950s. Opposition MPs and peers are also threatening to try to block the move, which would overturn Tony Blair’s 1998 ban on opening selective schools.
In order to smooth the passage of the law, new grammar schools will be encouraged to show their commitment to helping the disadvantaged get on in life. Head teachers will be permitted to set quotas for taking in a minimum number of children who get free school meals, or receive the ‘pupil premium’ which supports the less well-off.
Entrance requirements could also be adjusted to make it easier for poorer children to get in. Initially, the schools tary Jonathan Slater as he headed are likely to be targeted at typical into a meeting in Downing Street. working-class areas, such as on the He was photographed carrying a outskirts of big cities in Birmingpaper he had written which said a ham and elsewhere. consultation document would
Government sources said it was shortly be published stating the wrong that an arbitrary rule should Government’s commitment to ban grammars from opening, when ‘open new grammars, albeit that there was huge parental demand. they would have to follow various Education insiders have specuconditions’. lated there could be around ‘two It said the view of Education Secdozen’ new schools. retary Justine Greening was that it
Senior Tory MPs also hailed the ‘should be only to be pursued once move. They said sweeping away the we have worked with existing ban on selective schools would programmars to show how they can be vide greater opportunity for all. expanded and reformed in ways
An outline of the plans was which avoid disadvantaging those revealed by DfE permanent secre- who don’t get in’. Last autumn, a grammar school in Tonbridge, Kent, was allowed to expand on to a new site miles away in Sevenoaks, but opening new grammars would require a change in the law. No timetable has been revealed for when the first schools could open as getting it through Parliament is a major obstacle.
The memo makes it plain that ministers are preparing for a ferocious battle – with the main Oppo- sition parties and a small number of Conservative MPs opposed.
Tory insiders hope the legislation will clear the Commons with the support of Ulster Unionists. However, it will face a battle in the Lords, where Liberal Democrat and Labour peers are spoiling for a fight on the issue.
As there was no mention of grammar schools in last year’s Tory election manifesto, peers say this gives them free rein to block the proposal.
The Left-wing National Union of Teachers accused Mrs May of ‘taking education back to the 1950s, when children were segregated at age 11 and their life chances determined by the type of school they attended’.
And earlier this week, the outgoing head of Ofsted claimed the idea that poor children will benefit from a return of grammar schools was ‘tosh’ and ‘nonsense’.
But Graham Brady, chairman of the 1922 Committee of backbench Tory MPs, said: ‘Grammar schools are popular wherever they exist and the vast majority of people would like more of them.
‘Many people will be pleased that the Government is approaching the subject with an open mind.’
‘Popular with parents’