I feel sorry for Justine Greening. Educated in state primary and comprehensive schools in Rotherham, the new education secretary has been clear about the debt she feels to her teachers and her belief that education is the key to ensuring that “nobody is left behind”, as Theresa May famously promised on the steps of No 10.

The reality is that two measures her government has inherited - and is introducing immediately - will increase the number “left behind”.

The first is complicated and arises from the way government funds and holds further education colleges to account. They need to minimise the number of their leavers not achieving level 2 maths and English. This has led many colleges to refuse access to level 3 courses to 17-year-olds - the first group required to stay on in education until age 18 - after they have spent a year on level 2 courses, if they have failed their English and maths resits. This increases the number of 17-year-olds dropping out to become Neets (not in education, employment or training).

Talent on hold

Why? Well, without GCSE success in English and maths, it’s no good having a talent in the arts - music for instance - or in agriculture, horticulture or, for that matter, furniture making: you’ll have to bide your time on some other level 2 course, keep trying for English and maths, and put your talent and passion on hold.

Of course, you won’t; you’ll abandon all hope. As I write this, I’ve seen it happen at a local college. Young people refused entry are not simply being left behind, they’re on the street. Colleges - traditionally the providers of second chances to students turfed out from choosy sixth forms - are having to put their institution’s reputation before the needs of individual students.

Next year, the government is going further (even before we start thinking about the dreaded plans for more selection at 11). “Don’t leave it until 16, let’s instil the belief that you are a failure by the age of 11” seems to be the unintended message. For that will be the outcome of insisting that those Year 6 pupils not scoring at the level expected in tests in English and maths - and not “secondary-ready”, as the Department for Education so hopelessly described it - will have to retake their tests at the end of the autumn term in secondary school.

Can you imagine anything more likely to convince an 11-year-old who has been struggling since Reception that they are not just failing to learn but are “failures”? The best secondary schools with low-achieving entries regularly help pupils make not 3 or 4 but 5 levels of progress and thereby achieve higher grades in GCSE English and maths. Their job would be harder with premature labelling of individual pupils as failures. Why do it anyway, since secondary schools’ Progress 8 score will keep them “honest”?

Disastrous consequences

Next year, moreover, the bar is to be raised for what counts as a higher grade in GCSE, just as it was this year with disastrous consequences for Year 6 Sats. And GCSE grades are normatively referenced year on year (and inexplicably linked by Ofqual to previous performance at 11) so the qualification is not criterion-referenced to a fixed understandable standard, and has a 10-20 per cent chance of error in marking. The Mad Hatter would understand.

Next summer, three things could make life better. Colleges could put the needs of students ahead of their institution’s reputation; secondary schools could refuse to run the Year 7 repeat tests; and “good” and “outstanding” primaries could advise parents not to send their children to school on the day of the Sats.

Of course, Justine Greening could pre-empt all that by reversing the crazy policies of her predecessors, which conflict with the pledge given by her boss about not leaving anyone behind. And also drop the proposals for grammar schools while they’re at it.

Sir Tim Brighouse is a former schools commissioner for London