RA Butler’s 1944 education reforms revolutionised access to post primary education. Every child who demonstrated a capacity to benefit from it would receive a free academic education, previously only available to those whose parents could pay for it. The basis of the policy was that of equality of opportunity based on merit; and hundreds of thousands of working-class children were to take advantage of it over the next 30 years.
By the mid 1960s more than 3,000 grammar schools were educating, among others, a legion of working-class pupils. State grammars were offering a free education comparable to that of the independent schools, and their pupils were mounting this new ladder of upward social mobility to claim their rightful places in the professions, the arts and the sciences. The multiplicity of places available guaranteed a wide social mix, and feeder primary schools took pride in the number of their pupils who gained admission.
Against this background in 1967 Tony Crosland, Labour’s education minister launched a campaign “to destroy every fucking grammar school in England, Wales and Northern Ireland”. His campaign was both ideological and political, seeking to advance the principle of equality of results, an attack on what he perceived as part of the social infrastructure of his conservative opponents. A purely educational policy of retaining the best and improving the rest would not have served his purpose. Henceforth excellence as the goal of an educational system would be replaced by a system whose value lay in being a tool for social and political engineering; a principle that has since plagued every level of education, from primary school to university.
The success of the grammar school population then and now is based on traditional teacher-led instruction within a changing and developing curriculum of discrete subjects. Pupils are encouraged to be competitive, aspirational and independent in thought, while offering respect to the knowledge and experience of their teachers. Post-1967 the political drive towards all-ability comprehensive schools was accompanied by a move to a progressive style of teaching in which the role of the teacher was often reduced to that of a facilitator.
Subjects became more generalised and the all-ability intake frequently resulted in a levelling down of pupil attainment. With this came a criticism of any form of pupil competition and a distaste for examinations and testing which might reveal inequality of results or inadequacy of teaching. The reduced status and authority of the teacher was reflected in the increasing levels of pupil indiscipline.
By 1998 only 164 grammar schools remained and the Schools Standards and Framework Act of the same year prohibited the opening of any new ones. By 2006 it was evident to me that the comprehensive system which now accounted for the teaching of some 95% of post primary state pupils was failing. The accelerating decline in levels of outcome could no longer be disguised by the dumbing down of exams, generosity of marking and the introduction of new non-academic subjects to GCSE and A-level courses. Aspirational parents were fleeing the state system.
At primary school stage the number of children leaving with low levels of literacy and numeracy, which put a permanent blight on their future education and social mobility, had become a scandal. On receiving the 2006 Rose report, Labour education minister Alan Johnson declared that thousands of children had been betrayed. When Alistair Campbell described many comprehensive schools as “bog standard” and Gordon Brown threatened to close schools if they did not achieve the very modest target of 30% of their pupils gaining five GCSE grades A to C including English and maths, it was clear that something had to be done to arrest the rot.
Against this background the demand for grammar school places was rocketing with an average of 10 to 12 applicants for each place. Even under Labour between 2002-08 the number of grammar school pupils increased by 30,000, the equivalent of 30 new grammar schools. This increase was within the existing 164 grammar schools.
Tony Blair’s response to the crisis was the academies project, by which comprehensive schools were rebranded as “academies” – a description normally applied to places of higher learning – and given a degree of self-governance. David Cameron merely extended the project while deputing Michael Gove to remedy the worst aspects of the curriculum and progressive teaching, with a programme that invoked the wrath of the educational establishment which continues to underwrite failure.
Recent research has shown that, with the possible exception of in the London area, the academy project has brought little improvement to the comprehensive system. The latest government figures indicate that an average of more than two academies per week in England are facing formal intervention. A report by the LSE and the Education Policy Institute reveals that while sponsored academies show an initial improvement, this dissipates after three years and they return to their pre-academy level.
A minority of comprehensives and academies are successful, but these are generally sited in areas of affluence where house prices in the catchment areas put them beyond the reach of aspirational working-class parents and as a result they are often characterised by having low numbers of pupils who receive free school meals. As Lord Adonis, a former Labour education spokesman put it: “Selection on merit has been replaced by selection on money and postcode.”
It is a palpable Aunt Sally to suggest that supporters of new grammar schools seek a return to a universal mandatory selection test; they do however assert that there is no educational basis for denying aspirational parents of whatever class the entirely voluntary choice of a grammar school education if their child would benefit from it.
The enforced limitation of grammar school places by the 1998 act has effectively reversed Butler’s 1944 reforms in that it has largely returned a grammar school education to those whose money can enhance their child’s prospect of a place, and excluded many of those whom the reforms were intended to benefit.
The prime minister’s policy can be seen as a way of re-enfranchising the disadvantaged. The restoration of grammar schools to deprived areas must be accompanied by provisions for close liaisons with revitalised feeder primaries to identify and promote those children with the potential to benefit. Improving the quality of aspirational education in our primary schools is the foundation of all social mobility.
The prime minister can take heart from the fact that a series of opinion polls carried out on behalf of the National Grammar Schools Association have shown a significant majority in favour of the opening of new grammar schools. Such schools, especially in areas of social and economic disadvantage, will assist in bridging the gap in terms of opportunity between rich and poor and between north and south. They will provide a level of competition, aspiration, and achievement that will enrich, improve, and supplement our entire system of education.
