The past week in Westminster was dominated by the debate surrounding grammar schools, following the launch of a Government consultation on allowing the creation of new grammar schools, or to enable the 163 existing grammars to expand, both of which have been banned since 1997 under the last Labour administration.
Almost immediately the proposals we condemned out-of-hand by the opponents as elitist, socially divisive and which harm the prospects of children in non-grammar schools. Such criticism seems based more in prejudice and emotion than with an engagement of the facts of the debate.
For starters it ignores that the Government’s proposals for potential grammar school expansion come with strict conditions to benefit both pupils from poorer backgrounds and to help bolster the attainment in non-grammar schools too. For instance, any schools wishing to become grammars must abide by quotas for children from low-income homes, and new grammars will be forced to build a “high quality, non-selective” free school or set up or sponsor a primary feeder school in a deprived area.
More importantly it neglects the fact that, like it or not, selection is very real and present in our state education system already, except it is not based on children’s ability or hard work but rather on their parent’s wealth and social status and ability to buy a home in the catchment area of a top performing school and afford the inflated price tag that comes with it. This proxy selection of school places fought out by parents via the already pressured property market, can hardly be said to be good for social mobility nor the wider housing crisis.
So maybe it is time, after a 20 year freeze on grammar schools, we gave them another look. I am pleased that this policy proposal was put forward as a Green Paper consultation, rather than a statement of intent, (as was the case with the forced academies programme), meaning that MPs, teaching professionals, and parents will all have a chance to put their views to Government and shape the final policy.
My personal view is that this is a debate that should be had, but that we must be careful that it is a measured, fact based debate, and not an emotional one. The debate becomes emotive when people talk of “segregation” or of “winners and losers”, but what we should really be talking about is children aptitudes across a range of talents, and how schools can best nurture and advance those talents. Moreover where schools do select, it should be not just on academic ability, but in aptitude in music and sport for example, as much as in maths, science, and languages. I believe that, in that way, there are no losers; instead, all talents are championed and pupils are fulfilled.