Education secretary Justine Greening has taken up the remit – set in motion by prime minister Teresa May – to expand selective schools at 11-plus, claiming that this strategy will improve every child’s chances.
A more selective system, it is alleged, will help the education system to develop as a genuine meritocracy. If you work hard and are bright enough you can move up in the world in spite of disadvantages.
To say that such claims are disingenuous is an understatement.
The suggestion that a more selective system improves social mobility is not supported by the facts and, in this area, the evidence is clear.
A selective system entrenches privilege and disadvantage, it doesn’t unsettle it. Research from the Sutton Trust (Poor Grammar, 2013) demonstrates that in the 163 grammar schools in England, less than three per cent of pupils were entitled to free school meals – a proxy for social deprivation. Worse than that, high-achieving children who are entitled to free school meals have a much lesser chance of attending a grammar school than, similarly, high-achieving children. The current system of assessment at 11 does not offer a level playing field for families who can’t afford tutors and prep schools.
In 2012, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) reported – in Equity and Quality in Education: Supporting disadvantaged students and schools – that intergenerational social mobility in England had not improved and, in some ways, has got worse. Our preoccupation with sorting and sifting children is identified as part of the cause.
Though we might believe that grouping children by ability makes for a more efficient and bespoke system, the facts reveal the opposite. It limits aspiration, opportunity and equality. It is a highly successful route to maintaining the status quo. The OECD suggests that where classes (and schools) are diverse, containing children of varied abilities and backgrounds, the results for social mobility are better.
That we are heading for a more segregated system in England is clear in recent statistics from the Department for Education (Special Educational Needs in England: January 2016), where it is reported that there are nearly five per cent more children with statements or Education, Health and Care Plans in special schools than there were in 2010.
This is a sign that our schools are becoming less diverse and less inclusive. Given the focus on academic ability, children with SEN are unlikely to gain access to lauded grammar schools. This is not a system of choice, it is a system of segregation endorsed by an unfair system of assessment and the continuing elevation of academic ability above other domains of human development.
Turning to the solution, the OECD and Sutton Trust place emphasis on a more nuanced approach to policy where the route to a fairer education system depends on an alignment between education policy and other government policies such as housing and welfare. It also depends on delaying segregation by ability until upper secondary school.
Schools are also helped when an education system can attract, support and retain high-quality teachers in disadvantaged schools. This most recent policy announcement has the potential to throw the system into further chaos in ways that cannot attract the best and brightest teachers.
A disadvantaged school will seem all the more disadvantaged when the “brighter” children are sent elsewhere – it seems likely that the “brighter” teachers will follow them.
More importantly, in an increasingly segregated system, schools are impoverished when their populations do not include children with disabilities and learning difficulties.
In my opinion we are set to launch structural reforms that tighten the stranglehold of poverty, categorise children and cannot deliver on social mobility.
- Dr Deborah Robinson is director of the Institute of Education at the University of Derby.