Ministers are basing their grammar school proposals on “nostalgia” and not evidence, the leader of a headteachers’ union warned today.

Malcolm Trobe, interim general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, urged the Conservative government not to jeopardise the “enormous progress” made in education policy by ushering in more selection in schools.

Speaking at a fringe event at the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham, Mr Trobe said that creating new grammars would not improve social mobility for the “vast majority” of people.

His comments came after Prime Minister Theresa May told the BBC’s The Andrew Marr Show yesterday that increased selection was not about “going back to the 1950s”.

Mr Trobe said: “It makes no sense to base modern education policy on nostalgia for a time when relatively few people went on to university and professional careers.

“Post-war Britain was utterly different from the Britain of today. Today, we need as many people as possible to have the high-order knowledge and skills that enable us to compete on a world stage, not an educated elite.
 
“The answer is to ensure that as many children as possible have access to an academically rigorous curriculum which gives them a sound platform on which to base their future educational and career choices.”

‘Severe teacher shortages and cuts in funding’

Mr Trobe pointed to the “significant evidence” that all children benefit from such a curriculum, and described the move to expand selection as a distraction.

He said that “enormous progress” had been made to improve the education of the most disadvantaged.
 
“However, this progress is being jeopardised by severe teacher shortages and real-terms cuts in funding. These are the issues which the government must address in order to give every child the best possible life chances - rather than becoming distracted by a policy on increasing selection which is not the right way forward in the 21st century,” Mr Trobe said.

He raised his concerns about funding after heads in West Sussex warned they might have to put their schools on a four-day week because of financial problems.

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