England’s existing grammars cream off the most able students from privileged backgrounds, yet their results are only marginally better
Five years into the government’s drive to make grammar schools more inclusive, the results are mixed at best. An investigation by the BBC revealed that a quarter of England’s 160 grammar schools remain woefully behind in offering places to disadvantaged children – who still make up less than 5% of the student body. Fewer still will have a special educational need.
But any push for inclusivity, well meaning as it may seem, is still based on a mistaken assumption: that grammars are intrinsically better than comprehensives; that they are bastions of old-world excellence that get the very best out of their students. Ever since Labour banned the creation of new grammar schools in 1998, those on the right have argued that grammars are the silver bullet with which that pernicious demon, lack of social mobility, can be vanquished.
Lola Okolosie is an English teacher and writer focusing on race, politics, education and feminism
