The following piece appeared in today’s Oxford Mail comment column.
What is the nature of the contract between the State and those parents who entrust their children’s education to the government? As we approach the 150th anniversary of the State’s offer of free education, a right that was originally introduced by the Liberal government after 1870, this question is as real today as it was then.
Indeed, with the local Tory enthusiasm for the re-introduction of grammar schools, as outlined by Oxfordshire’s Cabinet member with responsibility for education in this paper last week, the issue is of real concern to many parents locally. I did wonder whether the enthusiasm with which the local Tories have embraced grammar schools is just a diversionary tactic to draw attention away from other cuts in the education funding and early years’ budgets, including the removal of much of the Children’s Centre work from rural areas and my own division in north Oxford rather than a genuine desire to turn back the clock.
Grammar schools became a core part of Tory Party policy after the passing of the 1944 Education Act, although it was the Labour government of the late 1940s that laid down the basis for the transformation into the system of grammar and secondary modern schools. With many school leavers at that time still destined for field, factory or, for many girls, family life, grammar schools satisfied the needs of a largely muscle-powered economy for a small number of more educated individuals.
Now, fast forward seventy years and we have an entirely different economy; young people are staying in education longer and our economy requires a much better educated workforce. The market porter of yesterday, pushing a barrow, has been replaced by the fork-lift truck driver and even they are increasingly being replaced by computer operatives running automated warehouses staffed by robots such as those seen in the recent BBC TV series on how modern factories operate. Less muscle, more brain power is the key to the modern economy.
In Oxfordshire, the demand for educated individuals to staff the wealth-creating and knowledge generating industries cannot be satisfied by selecting a fraction of the school population at age eleven. There is a case for recognising that between 14-16 pupils can make judgements about their future intentions, but even then closing doors too firmly, as grammar schools so often do, isn’t a good idea.
There are far more important ways to spend limited funds on education than introducing grammar schools: better careers advice, ensuring enough teachers for all children to be taught by a properly qualified teacher and creating a curriculum designed for the twenty-first century are just three of the more important uses for education funding.
However, the most important reason many supporters of grammar schools put forward for their re-introduction is the desire to improve social mobility. Too often there is no evidence to support their argument other than anecdotal recollections of individuals who prospered in the so-called golden age of grammar schools. To test the current picture I looked at the percentage of pupils with free school meals in the 163 grammar schools across England in January as a possible proxy measure for social mobility.
Nationally, 14.1% of secondary pupils were eligible for free school meals. No grammar school reached that figure; indeed only six grammar schools had more than 6% of their pupils eligible for free school meals; 66 grammar schools had less than 2% of pupils on Free School Meals.
It is time for us to work together to create an education system that works for the benefit of all, not the advantage of the few: that means a fully comprehensive system with opportunities for all from primary school to post-16 provision.
John Howson 
I was one of the few on free meals at a selective school in the 60s, although it was in a predominately ” working class area”, many of my classmates were from middle-class area outside the borough.Nothing seems to have changed.
Hi Frank,
Didn’t know that, but no reason why I should have done. As you say, things haven’t changed much at all.
John
I thought that might be the case. The proportion of pupils eligible for FSM in the census year (I call them FSM1) is always lower than FSM6. Ofsted uses FSM1 to pillory LAs where it thinks the gap between advantaged and disadvantaged pupils is too wide. But this might not be the case if FSM6 is used. It can be the difference between success and failure as happened with Bath and North East Somerset in March 2015. http://www.localschoolsnetwork.org.uk/2015/03/mind-the-gap-it-can-result-in-success-or-failure
But that’s straying beyond the argument re grammars. As you rightly say, selective schools have fewer (in many cases, far fewer) FSM pupils than the national figure however it’s measured. Proponents of grammars say that’s because grammars tend to be in more affluent areas and the intake is merely reflected this. But that it’s necessary the case. For example, Kent and Lincolnshire, both large selective counties, have pockets of deprivation especially in their coastal towns. For example, Skegness, one of the most deprived coastal towns in England, has two secondary schools: Skegness Grammar has 11.3% FSM6 pupils while non-selective Skegness Academy has 50.1%.
Janet,
Points well made, as ever. I agree Lincolnshire is a good example of how selective systems don’t work to the benefit of all. Interesting observation about Ofsted.
John
DfE School Performance Tables say 29.4% of secondary pupils nationally have been eligible for FSM any time in the last six years.
Janet,
I used the figure from the School Census rather than the performance tables as it was more recent. I think it is not the FSM6 but actual at the census point. Either way, grammar schools don’t come out well and with FSM levels falling with reducing unemployment levels the gap is still far too wide.
John
Nick Timothy, late of the taxpayer-funded charity New Schools Network and now adviser to Theresa May, told The Times any new grammars wouldn’t be targeted at the most disadvantaged because the Government’s ‘less interested’ in them. So much for grammars helping the poorest.
http://www.localschoolsnetwork.org.uk/2016/08/new-grammars-wont-be-for-bottom-10-the-government-is-less-interested-in-them
Janet,
Mrs T sold council houses, perhaps Mrs M want to make her name with grammar schools. could be a big issue in local elections next year. Shouldn’t the State be interested in everyone, especially every child/ if the Tories are prepared to say that they aren’t bothered about some what was the point of Mrs May calling for date on under-performance amongst certain groups in society?
John
Hello John,
I came across your posts while looking for statistics that might be useful for my own posts (for a small private tuition company – whose blogs are primarily for SEO boosting purposes, but I like to add a pinch of substance or meaningful comment when possible). It always interests me whenever I read or hear people using eligibility for free school meals as an indicator of social inclusion and mobility.
This is why. When three of my children passed the 11+, they were among a majority of pupils from the same school whose parents worked double shifts in ancillary roles in order to make ends meet. These parents, myself included, were not entitled to apply for FSM as they were not dependant on benefits. However, and primarily due to exorbitant rents in West London, we had a level of disposable income similar to, or less than, our benefit-dependant neighbours.
Families like mine are not from the ‘typical’ white middle class background that makes up the majority of grammar school families, but our level of working poverty (£150 a week before bills, not after) isn’t represented in any reports or articles I have read about social mobility and inclusion.
Parents like me wanted our children to have a grammar school education for many reasons. We don’t live in the catchment area for the only ‘decent’ secondary in our area. Instead, my children would have been offered a secondary school place where student achievement is a grind for pupils, parents and teachers; I know this because I worked at that school for eight years and watched the demise of my children’s primary school friends into young adults for whom a promising future is not falling into a life of petty crime. Yes, it actually is that serious and that sad.
Grammar school allowed my children and their friends who also passed the 11+ opportunities to succeed in life – starting with the freedom to learn unhindered by peer pressure to abandon manners and moral, and supported by a community of teachers and parents who valued good education.
While I do feel that entrance exams are stacked against people from disadvantaged backgrounds (I could, but won’t enumerate), I think that by not including families like myself in the official statistics we have a slightly skewed figure of inclusion. I’d love to hear what you think about this. I could be wrong, perhaps NPE (not poor enough) families such as mine are already factored into inclusion and social mobility data.
Thank you for reading.
Riffat,
Thank you for your comments. Yes, there were, and are, parents that want to do the best for their offspring and like you did, work double shifts and forego the pleasures of life to ensure their children do well and attend a particular school. If you take that argument to its logical conclusion then selection at five is as valid as at eleven.
I started my teaching career in a selective school that was morphing into an estate comprehensive and not all pupils from the estate descended into a life of crime and I recall teaching the first pupil to go to Cambridge and the first to win a scholarship to Imperial, as well as working with the first drama group to win an adult festival.
Good schools for all not selective schools for some still remains my view of both the best of society and the economy and individuals.
John Howson
I’m not sure how parents’ willingness to strive for their children’s admission to a particular school at the age of 11 leads to the conclusion that selection at five is valid. That could be because I don’t have a prep school mentality, in much the same way that most parents of Year 6 children at my primary wouldn’t try to or want to work at getting their children into a grammar school.
My comments aren’t about denying or securing a good education, it’s about how reflective or accurate the stats are about disadvantaged background children attending grammar schools.
Given the choice to send my kids to a good/outstanding school close to me, or one much farther away, I’d go for the former, obviously. But there are far more people like me who don’t have that choice than those that do – the six (is it still six?) ‘choices’ parents have for secondary school admissions is a waste of paper when proximity to a school is an overriding criterion.
Sorry:
manners and moral
should be
manners and morals
families like myself
should be
families line mine
Noted
Arrghh!!! Sorry: families LIKE mine
Enough proofreading