Aspiration, Wayne Rooney’s boys and why we must create more grammar schools
What’s in a school uniform? Quite a lot. Many children are proud of theirs. this week, footballer Wayne Rooney and his wife posted online photos of their young sons in their smart and distinctive uniforms as they returned to their private school in Cheshire.
the boys, aged three and six, each wearing identical caps, looked pleased as punch. Nothing seemed out of place. Rooney expressed his fatherly pride in a tweet.
Meanwhile, at hartsdown academy in Margate, Kent, some parents are much less sympathetic to school uniforms. the new headmaster, Matthew tate, has turned away dozens of pupils for having the wrong uniform. Good for him!
One parent idiotically accused him of acting like the Gestapo. another, Dave hopper, described Mr tate’s actions as ‘disgusting’ and ‘abhorrent’. he is particularly upset that his daughter Kim was sent home on tuesday for not wearing a blazer.
Mr hopper is also enraged because Mr tate disapproves of Kim’s black shoes, which are suede, rather than the regulation leather, and have slight heels. he has been told he will have to buy new ones and is very cross about it.
It’s possible Mr tate lacks diplomatic skills. On the other hand, he reasonably wants to make his mark on a school that may be sloppy in more ways than one, having achieved notable success in his two previous teaching jobs. he realises that there’s no point in having a uniform if pupils vary it as they choose.
the purpose of uniforms is to instil an esprit de corps in a school. and if everyone is required to wear the same clothes, children from richer homes cannot flaunt their greater wealth. the injunction that uniforms should be identical was partly intended to protect poorer, working-class children.
there is a paradox here. Mr tate will be criticised by some people for insisting on old-fashioned, elitist standards. In fact, if he succeeds, he will be helping the less fortunate and the less well- off. Exactly the same could be said of theresa May, and her proposal to open new grammar schools in England to add to the 164 existing ones.
Outline plans are expected to be unveiled in a matter of days, and one does not have to possess the gift of prophecy to be certain they will be met with howls of protest from Labour, Lib Dems, some tories, the educational establishment and most teachers. But not, of course, from the majority of parents.
It will be said that Mrs May is attempting to turn back the clock by re-introducing a divisive, twotier educational system. there is going to be an almighty row, which may almost rival Brexit in its intensity.
YEt it seems to me that the Prime Minister’s heart is in the right place. she knows that there are many clever children from poorer homes who are not being properly served, even by improved academies. I don’t believe she is wildly ideological. she just rightly senses that some gifted pupils are being left behind.
her ideal is to overturn the 18-yearold ban on new grammars and, in the first instance, to set up perhaps two dozen new ones, largely in poorer areas where clever working- class children are not getting the education they deserve.
It is a fairly modest scheme — perhaps too modest — yet it may be strangled at birth by blockheaded ideologues who will not even countenance a small variation to our current educational arrangements, which are hardly the envy of the rest of the world.
No one is arguing that we should return to the old system of dysfunctional secondary moderns, in which millions of children were left to rot. there will still be thousands of comprehensive schools, nearly all of which are capable of improvement.
Nor is anyone envisaging a rigid system such as existed half a century ago, when it was well-nigh impossible for a clever child overlooked at the age of 11 to gain admittance to a grammar school later on. there will have to be much more flexibility than there used to be.
But given that Britain’s state schools still languish near the bottom of most international league tables, despite vast expenditure over the past 20 years, and the recent introduction of self-governing academies, wouldn’t it be sensible, as well as progressive, to open new grammar schools in the hope of raising standards?
the tragedy is that Leftist group- think ( which has, regrettably, infected some muddled tories) prevents the issue from being addressed open-mindedly. For such people, grammar schools irrevocably stand for privilege.
In truth, their virtual abolition has entrenched the privileges of privately educated people, who dominate, or disproportionately populate, the professions ( including even acting), the tory party and much of the media, to a greater extent than was imaginable 40 years ago. the fact that social mobility has decreased in recent decades undoubtedly owes a lot to the virtual disappearance of grammar schools.
and yet, despite this evidence, some members of Mrs May’s Cabinet are opposed even to the cautious expansion of grammar schools. a document photographed while being carried into Downing street by Jonathan slater, Permanent secretary at the Department of Education, reflects some very wobbly thinking.
Justine Greening, the Education secretary (whose rapid political advancement seems to run ahead of her intellectual gifts), wants a slower approach than imagined by Mrs May and her pro-grammar school joint chief of staff, Nick timothy. In the photographed document, Ms Greening is quoted as believing that new grammar schools are only an ‘option’.
Meanwhile, in the house of Lords, the former tory university minister David Willetts is stoking up dissident tory peers, who will join Labour and Lib Dem colleagues in trying to scupper any pro- grammar school bill passed by the Commons. the prospect of unelected peers blocking reforms that are widely popular is pretty sickening.
Willetts, by the way, was fortunate enough to attend King Edward’s school, Birmingham, when it was a direct grant school (which took a proportion of pupils whose fees were paid by the state). after Labour abolished direct grant schools in 1976, King Edward’s went private and offers excellent education — for those who can afford to pay.
My advice to Mrs May is to listen to her own heart, the advice of Mr timothy and the undoubted support of most people — and to ignore the haverings of the likes of Jonathan slater and the unimpressive Justine Greening.
By championing those who have been left behind, and invoking ‘a country that works not for a privileged few, but that works for every one of us’, Mrs May has struck a deep chord.
In contrast, by opposing the creation of new grammar schools as long ago as 2007 — three years before he became Prime Minister — David Cameron gave an early fatal signal that great privilege had partly blinded him to the aspirations of people far less fortunate than himself.
Look again at the picture of the two Rooney boys in their neat uniforms. Because their father is fabulously rich, they are going to get a first-class education. Good for them, and him. Raised in a council house, he is able to send them to the best schools.
But if he were still poor, and assuming they were clever, what chance would there be that they could achieve their full potential? there are many decent comprehensives, but the system is manifestly failing some pupils.
to judge by a defiant speech last night, theresa May isn’t planning to give up. however bloody the fight may be, it seems that she won’t abandon her ambition to give gifted children from ordinary backgrounds the educational opportunities the present system is often disgracefully denying them.