If grammar schools can be judged ‘strong’ on inclusion, what does inclusion mean?

Schools Week has reported that every grammar school inspected so far under Ofsted’s new report card system has been judged either “Expected” or “Strong Standard” for inclusion. That finding raises an important question: what exactly does Ofsted mean by inclusion?

Grammar schools exist to select a minority of pupils based on academic attainment. By definition, they do not serve all children in their local community. They exclude most applicants and, as decades of evidence has shown, they admit disproportionately low numbers of disadvantaged pupils and children with special educational needs and disabilities.

It seems that under Ofsted’s new framework, admissions are not considered as part of the inclusion judgment. This means that schools can discourage SEND pupils, offer admissions that cause barriers for entry for poorer families, and still get a great review for inclusion. The Ofsted inspectors only focus on how schools identify and support pupils who face barriers to learning after they have been admitted. One of the grammar schools rated a ‘strong standard’ for inclusion only educates 0.2% pupils with an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) while the national average is 3.09%.  One grammar was rated ‘strong’ with just 5.2% FSM pupils when the average schools admits 28.9%.

Many grammar schools undoubtedly work hard to support the pupils they admit. The issue is whether inclusion can be separated from access. If a school excludes most local children through academic selection, should it really be described as inclusive?

Comprehensive Future’s Chair, Nuala Burgess,  told Schools Week, “Grammar schools cannot be ‘inclusive’. These schools, by their very nature, exclude the majority of local children by design. That is their raison d’etre, and they take great pride in their exclusivity.

“A truly inclusive school welcomes all children from the local community. Grammar schools, on the other hand, exclude hundreds of children with additional needs and from disadvantaged backgrounds every year.”

The problem is not that Ofsted has found examples of good support for vulnerable pupils. The problem is that its framework treats inclusion as something that begins after the admissions process is over.

That approach risks rewarding schools for supporting a relatively small number of disadvantaged pupils while ignoring whether those pupils had a fair chance of gaining access in the first place.

Inclusion does not start in the classroom. It starts at the school gate. If Ofsted wants its inclusion judgments to command public confidence, it should reconsider whether admissions policies really can be separated from questions of inclusion. Until then, many parents will struggle to understand how schools that select who comes through the door can simultaneously be held up as models of inclusion.