Clause36
Education and Inspections Bill
11:00 am
John Hayes (Shadow Minister (Vocational Education), Education; South Holland and The Deepings, Conservative)
We argue, in amendment No. 45, that there should be the opportunity for schools to select. We are not opposed to selection. We argue vociferously for banding and streaming in schools. We argue that what I described as a faded dream, or perhaps a nightmare that the hon. Gentleman has endured for so long, has not delivered for children in this country and that we need to think again. But it is important that we focus on the large number of schools that are not grammar schools. Our debate has been focused on the many children who do not live in an area with selection. It is important that we raise standards for all of our children, not just the most gifted, and it is vital that we understand that there are many factors in a good outcome in education: teaching and learning, curricular issues, home-school issues—the hon. Gentleman knows them all.
The Conservative party is not preoccupied with grammar schools, and we do not focus only on the children who attend them, but in light of the hon. Gentleman’s amendments it is important to focus on them now, as the Committee considers this part of the Bill. That is why the Conservative party has said what it has—we want opportunity for all children and we want more good schools of all types.
It is undeniably the case that one of the effects of the comprehensive idea, an effect that I am glad to say is now being broken up, was to undermine the opportunities of very large numbers of working-class children. The LSE study to which I referred found that
“an increasing link between family wealth and educational achievement was partly responsible for the marked decline in social mobility in Britain.”
As I said, in 1970, poorer children had much less opportunity to improve their socio-economic status as adults than those who were born when I was. The LSE report felt that
“The abolition of grammar schools...reduced opportunity in a country where parental wealth and a good education are strongly linked. Uniquely among the countries studied, the life chances of poorer children in Britain had become worse over time.”
The report showed that the decline of grammar schools has helped deepen class division, kicking away the ladder from brighter, working-class children.