Christian educationalist: grammar schools “cream off the brightest children”

The construction of the first new state grammar school to be created in the United Kingdom in a half-century has been approved by Education Secretary Nicky Morgan.

Labour passed laws in 1998 banning the creation of new grammars – with Kent being one of the few authorities which still use the selective system – but existing schools are allowed to expand if there is sufficient demand.

The new school in Sevenoaks is officially an annexe of the all-girls Weald of Kent Grammar School in Tonbridge.

Morgan said this is not change in government policy, but that good schools should be allowed to expand – including grammars.

The Times reported that the application would only be approved because governors met conditions set by Department for Education lawyers, including the requirement that pupils at the Sevenoaks site spend a few time at Tonbridge once a week.

“I welcome the fact that the newly expanded school will better meet the needs of parents in the local area, with 41 per cent of existing pupils at the Weald of Kent Grammar School already travelling from the Sevenoaks area”. Defence Secretary Michael Fallon, the Tory MP for Sevenoaks, said: “I am very, very pleased”.

It’s been a tough year for the Tory right, cheated of the leadership election it had been banking on by David Cameron’s unexpected victory, and then forced to sit through an interminably husky-hugging party conference speech.

“Let’s be absolutely clear: this decision today will open the floodgates”.

“UKIP is 100% in favour of selective education and would introduce a grammar school in every town and city”.

It is, however, no more dishonest than the rhetoric about expanding opportunities we can now expect to hear, if the Sevenoaks scheme survives legal challenge and is replicated elsewhere.

The 1944 Education Act envisioned a three-part education system divided into secondary, grammar and technical schools.

Leaders made a decision to focus on improving education for the three quarters of the school population who were attending non-selective schools.

Speaking about what the decision would mean for the Royal Borough, Cllr Bicknell said: “It means that the decision that we put on the back-burner at the last cabinet meeting now comes to the front and we kickstart where we were left in suspension”. People fervently believe the 11-plus is either the key to working-class social mobility – and that anyone who disagrees is kicking away the ladder – or a socially divisive ticket to misery.

But the opening of a new grammar school bodes less well for the most deprived children – exactly those who it is claimed new grammars will help.

In 2011 research by the London School of Economics concluded that “comprehensive schools were as good for mobility as the selective schools they replaced”. At present, too much entry to grammar schools is dependent on your parents’ bank balance – and their ability to afford prep school or private tuition. Grammar schools in Rugby and Birmingham are experimenting with schemes to admit children on free school meals with a lower pass mark.