News
Graham Brady: We must aspire to more grammar schools
19 February 2015
Conservative MP Graham Brady cites Sutton Trust research in an article on grammar schools in the Daily Telegraph.
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As the Conservative Party has reasserted its claim to be the champion of standards and excellence, there has, though, been a glaring omission in our offer. We stand for excellence; we stand for real choice and diversity; and we stand for aspiration. But until now we have limited peoples’ freedom to choose a type of school that is a byword for excellence and a proven path to opportunity.
However popular, whatever the demand, people were not allowed any new grammar schools. At the beginning of the parliament, Michael Gove joined me with heads from grammar schools around England to celebrate their success and to exhort them to strive even harder. Challenged as to why no new grammar schools could be established, he deftly parried by saying: “My foot is hovering over the pedal!”
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Research published by the Sutton Trust a few weeks ago showed something else quite exciting.
Of the top 20 local authority areas for state school students winning places at the Russell Group universities, 12 are at least part-selective. The only three areas outside London and the South East to figure in the list were selective Torbay, part-selective Bournemouth and selective Trafford. The last of these, in my own part of Greater Manchester, is the only authority in the whole of the North or the Midlands to reach the top 20.
At a time when politicians of all parties bemoan backward steps in social mobility over the past half century, it is astonishing that they have failed to recognise the massive significance of this.
Read the full article here
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