It would seem that the government’s half-cooked plans to allow increased selection in school admissions are dead. With a fair wind, this week’s Queen’s Speech will confirm it.

Woohoo, I hear you shout. No doubt, some will be popping champagne corks and patting themselves on the back.

But they shouldn’t. It is, of course, good news that increased selection has been derailed; the bad news is that it’s got very little to do with the unofficial campaign that battled to kill it off. The policy is in the waste-paper bin because Theresa May failed to win a majority in an election in which her grammar school plans barely featured.

The simple fact is that the reasons May’s Downing Street thought increasing the number of grammar schools was a vote-winner still hold true. They are two-fold: social mobility in this country is not good enough and the “comprehensive” brand is a bad one.

Setting to one side the social mobility issue, the lesson about comps’ marketing message must not be lost in all the back-slapping.

Championing comprehensives

The truth is that a large - possibly unquantifiable - proportion of voters would rather avoid sending their kids to “the local comp” if they can. And that’s not just because of snobbery: it’s because they genuinely believe (wrongly) that their progeny will not receive a good education if they do. The PR of comprehensives is terrible.

This gets to the heart of one of the problems with the so-called campaign to stop the government’s plans for more grammars: it spent too much time picking holes in the statistical failings of selective systems and not enough time shouting about the successes of comprehensive schools (of which there are many).

So let me offer up two lessons for the sector from this debacle that must be taken forward.

First: don’t stop shouting from the rooftops about comprehensive education’s many success stories. Not just about your individual school, but the wider system too.

Second: don’t rest on your laurels. I know schools can’t do it all, and I know it sometimes feels like wading through mud - and that you’re battling the worst of society’s injustices - but schools and teachers must never stop fighting to improve social mobility.

Parents must be made to believe that if they send Little Jonny to their local school, there’s every chance they will fulfil their potential.

We mustn’t let this happen again: it’s up to teachers, heads and the system as a whole to keep advancing the cause of comprehensive education. If they don’t, the forces of darkness will come again.

Ed Dorrell is head of content at Tes. He tweets @Ed_Dorrell

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