Labour challenges Nicky Morgan to publish new advice on new grammar school - Lucy Powell
Lucy Powell MP, Labour’s Shadow Secretary of State for Education, has today written to Nicky Morgan calling on her to publish the official advice she received on the opening of a new grammar school in Kent.
Writing to Nicky Morgan today, Lucy Powell said:
Dear Nicky Morgan,
Today you have confirmed that you are approving the first new grammar school in 50 years, as an ‘annex’ on a new site located miles away from it. Yet, the Conservative Party’s position has been that there will be no new grammar schools. You said last year that you were “resistant to selective education” and that there would be no new grammar schools under you. David Cameron has also said that expanding grammar schools was “a pointless debate”, and that “parents fundamentally don’t want their children divided into sheep and goats at the age of 11”.
You are now claiming that this is not a new school, despite the fact that it will have an intake of 450 pupils located on a site ten miles away and in a different town to the grammar school it is ‘annexed’ to. Your approval today of this new school suggests that you are now intent on increasing selection in our schools system by the back door. The application appears to be a new school in all but name, and I am calling on you to publish immediately the advice that you have received from civil servants on this proposal.
I am also asking that you write to me with answers to the following questions, as a matter of urgency:
· Are you still “resistant to selective education” or has your policy on selection changed?
· If it hasn’t changed, why are you increasing selective education by the back door and opening a new grammar school?
· If it has changed and you are now in favour of expanding selective education, how do you marry that with all the evidence that grammar schools do not promote social mobility in our education system?
· What steps are you taking to ensure that grammar schools are not disproportionately “stuffed full” of pupils from affluent backgrounds, as Sir Michael Wilshaw has said? And why hasn’t action been taken on this first before agreeing to a new grammar school?
· How much time at the Department for Education has been spent on this issue? Can you justify this given the catalogue of challenges facing the schools system, such as the struggle to recruit and retain teachers and the widening attainment gap between poorer children and their peers at GCSE?
As you are aware, just three per cent of children admitted to grammar schools are eligible for free school meals, even though 18 per cent of children in the local communities surrounding grammar schools fall into this category. In addition, research has shown that poor children do dramatically worse in selective areas. Poor children are less likely to score very highly at GCSE in areas with a grammar schools system than the rest. Not only are those children who don’t attend grammar schools in selective areas being left behind in terms of results, but also pay in later life. The Institute of Education has found that there is a considerably bigger gap in wages between the highest and lowest paid workers in areas with a grammar schools system than in other areas.
In the Conservative Party’s general election manifesto, you pledged to give every child the best start in life. It is only by focusing on raising standards for all that as a country we will achieve the scale of improvement that is so desperately needed to transform the life chances of all our children and end the inequality that is holding Britain back. That you and your party have now set yourselves completely against this view is extremely disappointing.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Lucy Powell MP
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