The Conservative Party are moving away from grammar schools and academic selection in the state sector, with David Willets claiming that:
"We must break free from the belief that academic selection is any longer the way to transform the life chances of bright, poor kids...They are abandoning grammar schools and turning support towards city academics instead - and I just can't see the benefit in doing so. Facts such as just 3% of those in the top state schools were poor enough to be entitled to free school dinners, compared to 14% nationally, are not sufficient support for it's abandonment. 'Middle-class' children do tend to have a higher intelligence because their parents tend to. Just because there is a gap doesn't mean the system isn't working.
This is a widespread belief but we just have to recognise that there is overwhelming evidence that such academic selection entrenches advantage, it does not spread it."
Abandoning grammar schools and the idea of academic selection is not very clever. Selection in schools is necessary. It is the only way in which every child can get the appropriate attention and help from their teachers. At the very least, classes need to be made up of children of as comparable level of intelligence, aptitude, or skill at a particular subject - otherwise either those who find the subject hard get left behind as the rest of the class moves on or the opposite happens and the education of the children who are better at the subject get neglected as such a disproportionate amount of time needs to be spent on one or a few pupils in a class.
A better way to combat inequalities in the system would be to cut the area from which schools are able to select. This means that their should be a pretty good reflection of the social dynamics of the area in the schools. Some schools have far too large a catchment area. The secondary school I went to [a state, non-grammar, but selective school] had pupils being bussed in from over an hour away - which is ridiculous. Fix the current system, which generally works. Don't throw it all away.
Sources: BBC - article 1, article 2; The Times; The Telegraph; The Guardian; The Independent
UPDATE: Cameron says that a debate over selection in schools is "entirely pointless". Not so. This is a big change in party policy, and it is only right that there is an opportunity for the Party to debate it. Like Iain Dale I think it's a debate that we shouldn't need to have anyway.
