So where are we at with the whole grammar schools thing?

While the reintroduction of the 11+ has rapidly become pretty much the only education policy worth talking about in town, it is still remarkably hazy.

Who? What? Where? When? Why? These are all questions that remain strikingly unanswered despite the recent publication of the green paper.

And it’s not just you, oh teachers and school leaders of Britain, who are wondering about these unresolved issues.

There is, of course, a whole cadre of civil servants scratching their heads and wondering what to do about a problem like Theresa May’s decision to bring back selection across the country.

So what do we know? First up, the “when”. It is understood that the PM has let it be known that she wants 10-20 new grammar schools by the end of this parliament, which all things being equal will be in 2020.

This figure doesn’t sound terribly ambitious until one considers that, according to a well-placed source, the earliest the DfE thinks they can get the required legislation through parliament is Spring 2018.

So it’s all rather rushed.

Setting to one-side timetables and legislative procedure, what else is worrying the DfE officials working on this challenging No 10 edict?

Unsurprisingly, more than a few things.  

From what I understand, they are focussed on reducing the over-all impact on existing schools, especially those that are already doing well. So, for example, officials are keen to see the whole process phased, with as much due consideration as possible. An evolution, rather than a revolution.

Similarly, grammar schools are only likely to be introduced into areas where a case can be made that they are needed: ie in areas where all schools have been underperforming for some time (see Respublica’s recent report into Knowsley).

They are also looking to ensure that the process of admissions are as fair as possibly - and that’s more than just attempting to develop an “ungameable” admission test. They are looking into ways of making grammar schools offer a lower “pass mark” to those pupils on free school meals (which has already been trialled in Kent and Birmingham), while additionally taking into account the performance of their primaries.

And of course there’s the pesky problem of actually persuading kids from deprived backgrounds to apply.

Another tricky issue to overcome is how you avoid the “cascade effect”. While most heads and governors purport to oppose selection, what happens when one secondary in an area caves in and applies to make the move? Do other neighbouring schools feel obliged to follow suit for fear of being left stranded as the area’s secondary modern?

Each of these problems in isolation would appear to be intractable: but together they make one of the trickiest education reform programmes in living memory. And it doesn’t look like Downing St wants to particularly take its time.

Oppose selection or not, pity the civil servant who has to make it work.

Ed Dorrell is head of content at the TES

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