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General Election 2017: Politicians urged to place social mobility at heart of next government

Two influential charities have called on politicians to put social mobility at the heart of the General Election campaign and the next Parliament.

Teacher training charity Teach First and social mobility charity the Sutton Trust both published manifestos as campaigning got underway ahead of the June 8 vote.

Among its priorities, the Sutton Trust is calling for admissions to grammar and comprehensive schools to be made fairer.

This comes after recent research showing that 2.4 per cent of pupils in grammar schools and nine per cent of pupils in the 500 top-performing comprehensive schools are disadvantaged, compared to 17 per cent in the average school.

As such, the charity wants grammars to do more to attract low-income pupils through improved outreach, contextual admissions and priority places. To tackle “selection by house price” at top comprehensives, the charity wants to see increased use of ballots and banding.

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