Grammars: do we really need more?
Theresa May is going to be so busy with Brexit over the next couple of years that she’ll struggle to find time for any other reforms, said Toby Helm in The Observer. But one issue that will get plenty of parliamentary attention is her plan to open more grammar schools in England. In last week’s Budget, Chancellor Philip Hammond made £320m available for 140 new free schools, which will – unlike other state-funded schools created since 1998 – be allowed to impose academic selection. The policy has already attracted a lot of opposition. At least 30 Tory MPS object to it, and Justine Greening, the Education Secretary, was last week jeered at the annual conference of the Association of School and College Leaders as she sought to defend it.
Most of the hostility to grammars stems from the way the old 11-plus entrance exam gave children “one shot at the golden ticket and no second chance”, said Tory MEP Syed Kamall on Conservativehome.com. But May has a different model in mind. Under her plan, new grammars would make allowances for late developers by admitting pupils at various ages, and would have to increase their intake of children from poor backgrounds. It would combine the “best of the old grammar school ethos with a modern approach to flexibility and fairness”.
Such reforms would be worth introducing in existing grammars, said The Times. The former Ofsted chief, Sir Michael Wilshaw, was right when he noted these schools are “stuffed full” of middle-class children. Only 3% of their pupils get free school meals, compared with 14% of children in England overall. It’s a bad idea, though, to create more grammars. There’s no getting round the fact that these schools cream off the best pupils and teachers, to the detriment of local comprehensives. “Selection is good for the children selected, and not so good for those who aren’t.” May’s support for grammars is a product of her own good experience at one, and of her desire to placate traditionalists who regard grammars “as a means of aiding social mobility”. But all the evidence suggests she would achieve much more if she concentrated on “continuing to build a school system that raises standards and works for everyone”.