Grammars ‘can transform white working class areas’

NEW grammar schools have the power to turn around chronic underperformance by white working class pupils, according to a report commissioned by a Labour council.

The study found selective schools could be ‘transformative’ in working class areas where aspiration is traditionally low.

It said creating more grammars would enable children receiving free school meals to achieve as much as those from middle class backgrounds. However, researchers warned the move would only be successful if the schools are in heavily deprived areas, where there are no middle class parents to play the admissions system.

It comes as the Government consults on overturning a ban on creating new grammars imposed by Tony Blair in 1998. Theresa May believes creating the schools in poorer areas could help disadvantaged youngsters catch up with their richer counterparts.

The study was carried out for Knowsley Council in Merseyside by ResPublica, a think tank which is said to have been influential on Tory policy in the past decade. Director Phillip Blond said: ‘For too long white working class chil- dren have been left behind by an education system which is not working properly.…

‘Re-introducing grammar schools is potentially a transformative idea for working class areas where there are little or no middle classes to game the admission system.’ Knowsley, which is the safest Labour council in the country, is the worst performing area for GCSE results and has some of the worst-rated secondary schools.

Its population is 95 per cent white British and over 15 per cent of the working population has no qualifications, compared with the national average of 8 per cent. The report said white working class children are the least likely to do well in school out of all pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds.

It added that Knowsley has a white, working class ‘mono culture’, with little contact with others from different social backgrounds and ‘narrow horizons’.

It comes after Mrs May used her maiden speech as Prime Minister to speak of the injustice that white working class boys are the least likely group to go to university.

ResPublica referred to previous research that found for ‘poor but bright’ pupils, grammar schools can boost performance by nearly 10 percentage points compared to non-selective schools.

In 2015, 96.2 per cent of children eligible for free school meals who were high achievers aged 11 and who went on to a grammar school achieved 5 or more A* to C GCSEs.

In comparison, just 87 per cent of similar children who went on to a non- selective school achieved at that level.

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