Theresa May is planning to launch a new generation of grammar schools, with a decision to scrap the ban on new selective schools expected to be announced as early as October, it has been reported today.
The Sunday Telegraph article is the strongest sign yet that a huge historic shift in schools policy is about to take place. It quotes an unnamed Government source as saying that allowing new grammars would be about “social mobility and making sure that people have the opportunity to capitalise on all of their talents”.
The news comes after weeks of speculation about new grammar schools following the change at the top of government.
Last month, education secretary Justine Greening fuelled speculation about a return to selection. Asked about her position on allowing more grammar schools, she replied: “We need to be prepared to be open-minded.”
And just last week, schools minister Nick Gibb sidestepped a question about more pupils going through the 11-plus.
Today’s article reported that the PM could announce a new wave of selective schools as early as the October Conservative conference.
But last night Downing Street sources pointed to Education Secretary Justine Greening’s comments in July when she said that the issue was in her “in-tray” and she would take time to consider it before any announcement is made.
Ms Greening said at the time that being being open-minded selection might not mean a return to the old pattern of grammars and secondary moderns, stressing that education was no longer a “binary” world and that there were already a range of different types of school on offer.
On Friday Sam Freedman, an adviser to Michael Gove when he was education secretary, used a TES interview to warn that changing government policy to allow more grammars would ”take up all of the DfE’s time” and could result in new GCSEs and other planned reforms going “horribly wrong”.
Mrs May is thought to be a supporter of new selective schools having backed a grammar school’s proposal to open a new “annexe” in her Maidenhead constituency.
And the PM’s new chief of staff Nick Timothy has also backed new selective schools in the past.
Responding to the today’s news, Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron said: “Lib Dems will work to block any Tory attempt to create grammar schools.”
Labour’s former shadow education secretary Lucy Powell said reintroducing grammar schools across England would be an “incredibly backward step”.
“All the evidence tells us that, far from giving working class kids chances, they entrench advantage and have become the preserve of the privately-tutored,” she said.
