Melissa Benn, Chair of Comprehensive Future, annotates Theresa May’s supposedly ‘One Nation’ speech on the steps of Downing Street on July 13th in the light of announcements that she looks likely to lift the ban on the creation of new grammar schools.This appeared today on the website of Local Schools Network.
I have just been to Buckingham Palace, where Her Majesty The Queen has asked me to form a new government, and I accepted. In David Cameron, I follow in the footsteps of a great, modern Prime Minister. Under David’s leadership, the government stabilised the economy, reduced the budget deficit, and helped more people into work than ever before.
Perhaps the most significant aspect of Cameron’s ‘modernity’ as PM was his recognition that the traditional Tory support for grammars had to be ditched. Over the past decade, an influential section of the party studied the evidence on grammars and social mobility and came to the considered conclusion that selective education hindered the life chances of poorer children. In the words of David Willetts, then Tory front-bench spokesman on education and employment, in his seminal speech on the issue, in 2007,‘ we must break free from the belief that academic selection is any longer the way to transform the life chances of bright poor kids..’ and that ‘ there is overwhelming evidence that such academic selection entrenches advantage, it does not spread it.’
But David’s true legacy is not about the economy but about social justice. From the introduction of same-sex marriage, to taking people on low wages out of income tax altogether; David Cameron has led a one-nation government, and it is in that spirit that I also plan to lead.
Cameron’s government recognised that it could never appear serious about ‘social justice’ as long as it continued to back selective education, which so clearly hinders the educational and later life chances of the majority of the working class and less well off. International data is clear: the earlier selection occurs, the greater the effect of socio-economic background on results.
Because not everybody knows this, but the full title of my party is the Conservative and Unionist Party, and that word ‘unionist’ is very important to me. It means we believe in the Union: the precious, precious bond between England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. But it means something else that is just as important; it means we believe in a union not just between the nations of the United Kingdom but between all of our citizens, every one of us, whoever we are and wherever we’re from.
That means fighting against the burning injustice that, if you’re born poor, you will die on average 9 years earlier than others.
If you’re black, you’re treated more harshly by the criminal justice system than if you’re white.
If you’re a white, working-class boy, you’re less likely than anybody else in Britain to go to university.
A grammar school system is supposedly designed to identify the academically talented from all social and ethnic backgrounds. The evidence is stark: it does not. Recent data from Buckinghamshire’s Local, Equal and Excellent group shows that high ability children from poor backgrounds, and some ethnic groups, do disproportionately badly under the 11+, suggesting that the exam is as much a reflection of family advantage and cultural capital, as raw academic talent.
Meanwhile, in selective systems, such as those which operate in Buckinghamshire, Kent and parts of Lincolnshire, the vast majority of children from lower income homes are turned away from grammar schools and forced to attend a secondary modern (although generally the school is re-badged under another, less damaging, title) where their prospects of achieving good GCSEs have been shown to be worse than if they had attended a comprehensive school.
If you’re at a state school, you’re less likely to reach the top professions than if you’re educated privately.
If you’re a woman, you will earn less than a man.
If you suffer from mental health problems, there’s not enough help to hand.
If you’re young, you’ll find it harder than ever before to own your own home.
All of those social and other difficulties will be hugely compounded if you attend a secondary modern.
But the mission to make Britain a country that works for everyone means more than fighting these injustices. If you’re from an ordinary working class family, life is much harder than many people in Westminster realise. You have a job but you don’t always have job security. You have your own home, but you worry about paying a mortgage. You can just about manage but you worry about the cost of living and getting your kids into a good school.
The ability to buy in ‘intensive coaching’ has been shown to be one of the biggest determinants of success in passing the 11 + exam. Children living in the wealthier areas of Buckinghamshire are twice as likely to pass the 11+ as children living in poorer areas. Children at private schools are nearly three times more likely to pass than children from state schools. In these tough economic times, lower income families who are, in May’s words, ‘just managing’, are highly unlikely to be able to afford the thousands of pounds involved in procuring such extra tuition or paying for a primary education, even if they should want to.
If you’re one of those families, if you’re just managing, I want to address you directly.
I know you’re working around the clock, I know you’re doing your best, and I know that sometimes life can be a struggle. The government I lead will be driven not by the interests of the privileged few, but by yours.
Nationally, grammar schools take a tiny percentage of children on free school meals. Most children at these schools are from more affluent homes. They receive a selective and socially segregated education paid for by the taxes of the less well-off.
We will do everything we can to give you more control over your lives. When we take the big calls, we’ll think not of the powerful, but you.
If the decision to build more grammar schools go ahead, thousands more children will face the ‘biggest call’ of their lives at the young age of ten or eleven. They will either fail to take, or take and fail, the 11+. Under such a high stakes system, the children of the powerful are clearly the most likely to succeed and the children of the powerless the most likely to fail. This will have not just educational, but human consequences.
As Joanne Bartley, a parent who opposes the 11+ in Kent, has said so eloquently, ‘ I think of the 11-plus division of people like this: for every one proud person believing they are cleverer than the rest, there are three people who are quiet, embarrassed, feeling stupid. Every time I hear someone say how fine grammar schools are, I think of the quiet people. Maybe you will consider them sometimes, too.’
When we pass new laws, we’ll listen not to the mighty but to you. When it comes to taxes, we’ll prioritise not the wealthy, but you. When it comes to opportunity, we won’t entrench the advantages of the fortunate few. We will do everything we can to help anybody, whatever your background, to go as far as your talents will take you.
Segregating children from different social backgrounds and ethnicities into different and unequally regarded schools restricts the opportunities and diminishes the confidence, often for life, of poorer children.
It priorities the wealthy – not you. It’s as simple as that.
We are living through an important moment in our country’s history. Following the referendum, we face a time of great national change.
And I know because we’re Great Britain, that we will rise to the challenge. As we leave the European Union, we will forge a bold new positive role for ourselves in the world, and we will make Britain a country that works not for a privileged few, but for every one of us.
Grammar schools were largely phased out from the 1960s onwards because thousands of parents, among them many Conservative voters, found it wholly unacceptable that their children should be judged failures before reaching puberty and sent to schools that were clearly considered second-class.
That will be the mission of the government I lead, and together we will build a better Britain.
If Theresa May follows through on this policy and re-instates a previously failed, deeply divisive education system her highly praised ‘one nation’ rhetoric on the steps of Downing Street will be revealed as a hollow sham.
