By Lucy Caulkett-
Sir Michael Wilshaw has clashed with Theresa May over the UK prime minister’s plans to approve a fresh wave of grammar schools.
The head of Ofsted rubbished plans to return to grammar schools as rubbish. May plans to give the go-ahead for up to 20 new selective schools in working class areas which will admit significant numbers of pupils entitled to Free School Meals.
However, Sir Wilshaw yesterday dismissed the selective model – long favoured by many Conservatives – stating it would fail the poorest children
He slammed plans to revert to a selection of 11-years-old as a ‘profoundly retrograde step’ that would lead to overall standards ‘sliding back not improving’.
Speaking at the London Councils education conference on Monday, the former head teacher claimed the performance of state school children ‘surely makes a mockery of the claim that opening up many more grammar schools is the key to unlocking the potential of disadvantaged children and to boosting social mobility’
Wilshaw told delegates: ‘If grammar schools are the great answer, why aren’t there more of them in London?
‘If they are such a good thing for poor children, then why are poor children here in the capital doing so much better than their counterparts in those parts of the country that operate selection?
‘I appreciate that many grammar schools do a fine job in equipping their students with an excellent education. But we all know that their record of admitting children from non-middle-class backgrounds is pretty woeful.’
Sir Wilshaw may be right that that grammar schools have a poor record of admitting children from non middle class backgrounds, but that is likely because those children fail to meet the entry requirements to enter those schools.
Wilshaw is wrong that state school children generally do better than children from grammar schools. His comments sound more like a rash judgement aimed at attacking the prim minister. Children from state schools are generally less disciplined, and many of them have less ability from the outset than grammar school children who have undergone the rigorous preparation for the 11 plus exams and were successful at them.
Sir Michael, who is due to leave his post after five years this autumn, added: ‘The notion that the poor stand to benefit from the return of grammar schools strikes me as quite palpable tosh and nonsense – and is very clearly refuted by the London experience.’
Reports last month suggested the Prime Minister was considering sanctioning up to two dozen new selective schools in a bid to improve social mobility.
The Department for Education (DfE) said Education Secretary Justine Greening was ‘looking at the (grammar schools) issue’.
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Opponents of the move to promote grammar schools, argue that the 11-plus exam led to elite institutions dominated by middle-class children at the expense of the majority of young people from poorer backgrounds, who received sub-standard education in secondary moderns.
However, that criticism is weak because the duty is on parents from poorer backgrounds to give their children the necessary academic training to match children from middle class backgrounds during the developmental education process in the transition from primary to secondary school