At the beginning of the summer, it would have been inconceivable that the government would be considering bringing back academic selection in schools. Yet here we are in September, with the story attracting news headlines in the national press, all starting with a photo of a document being carried into 10 Downing Street mentioning new grammar schools.
The timing of the issue is the most surprising. The new Secretary of State for Education, Justine Greening, had one of the rarest and most useful things in politics; a fresh slate. There could be a real risk to her image with a controversial policy like this, and it seems like a political own goal for the first Education Secretary who was educated at a comprehensive school to be the one to re-introduce academic selection. In fairness to Ms Greening, it’s clear that the driving force behind the policy is the Prime Minister herself.
Allowing schools to select pupils based on their ability is a sure-fire way to divide public and political opinion, and there is no mandate from the electorate. Regardless of the reasons, in our opinion now is not the right time to put the policy on the table. There are a number of pressing, longstanding issues in education, and the debate on grammars only serves to detract attention away from them.
Teacher recruitment and retention is widely regarded a real crisis. Many schools are starting the school year with shortfalls in staffing numbers, and many teachers are taking lessons outside of their subject specialisms. This is the most pressing issue in schools at the moment. There’s nothing that would improve education standards more than ensuring an adequate supply of good quality teachers, and addressing the reasons why people leave the profession in such large numbers.
Then there’s the new national funding formula. This has been promised since 2010, but the government seems reluctant to push it through, delaying it until 2018. Perhaps they’re reluctant as they know that many schools will lose out under the new funding formula.
There are huge reforms to technical education following the publication of the Post-16 Skills plan. The government has done little to link schools to the new technical routes, and failure to link these two areas could result in poor outcomes for some learners.
One would think that these issues would provide enough of a challenge for any new minister. The introduction of this huge reform means less time will be spent solving existing problems and we’re unlikely to see any meaningful solutions anytime soon.
