Why is the return of grammar schools so controversial?

The big question: The Prime Minister wants state schools which select students on the basis of ability to be reintroduced

Altrincham Grammar School for Boys (Getty Images)

Why are we asking this now?

Theresa May has revealed plans to create a new generation of grammar schools by scrapping a ban placed on them almost 20 years ago.

The plans would allow existing grammar schools in England to expand, and new ones to open.

What are grammar schools?

Grammar schools are state secondary schools which select students on the basis of ability. Students have to pass an exam when they are 11 — called the 11-plus — to be admitted.

The modern grammar school concept was introduced by the Education Act in 1944, which enforced a division between primary and secondary schools, and further divided secondary schools into two main categories: grammar schools and secondary moderns.

Student who passed the 11-plus went to grammar schools, while students who failed the 11-plus went to secondary moderns.

The system effectively divided pupils into two types before their 12th birthday — those who were heading for university, and those who were not.

In 1965 a Labour government began the process of phasing out grammar schools. Eventually, in 1998 Tony Blair's government put an outright ban on new grammar schools being created.

As a result, comprehensive schools are now far more common than grammar schools in the UK state education system. In comprehensive schools pupils of all abilities are taught together and there are no academic entry requirements.

There are currently only about 163 grammar schools left in England, out of around 3,000 state secondary schools, with around 167,000 pupils between them. There are a further 69 grammar schools in Northern Ireland, but none in Wales or Scotland.

Why do some people want to bring grammar schools back?

Ms May said the longstanding ban on new selective schools “has held bright poor children back”.

Grammar schools are supposed to identify children who have the potential to do well, and separate them from children who are less academic and might hold others back, proponents say.

Ms May said students are currently being selected for schools by the area they live in, which gives an unfair advantage to students who live in affluent areas close to good comprehensive schools.

She said children's potential was being sacrificed for "dogma and ideology" under the current ban.

"The truth is that we already have selection in our school system – and it’s selection by house price, selection by wealth," she said. "That is simply unfair.”

Ms May argued that grammar schools improve social mobility and reintroducing them would help make the country a “true meritocracy”.

The Education Secretar,y Justine Greening, has said. “There will be no return to the simplistic, binary choice of the past, where schools separate children into winners and losers, successes or failures."

Why do others oppose them?

Many believe reintroducing grammar schools will do precisely the opposite of what Ms May and Ms Greening claim.

Labour say the plans will “entrench inequality”, and shadow Education Secretary Angela Rayner called the policy divisive, saying it would “segregate” children.

Ms Rayner criticised Ms May's evasive language, suggesting the truth of the matter is less palatable than Ms May is letting on. “If you’re going to say, ‘there’s bright kids and there’s kids that are not that bright, and we need to segregate those kids,' then say it’,“ Ms Rayner said.

A spokesperson for the Sutton Trust, an educational charity that supports underprivileged young people, said "the existing 163 grammars are largely very socially selective".

The 11-Plus has been criticised for including types of questions that are not taught in most state primary schools. As a result, students who have been to private primary schools or can afford private tuition tend to perform better in the test, whereas poorer students are disadvantaged.

Ofsted also attacked the plans, arguing the current system is improving and should not be put at risk.

Sir Michael Wilshaw, the Chief inspector of schools, said the system would only help a few children, at the expense of many others,

“We will fail as a nation if we only get the top 15%-20% of our children achieving well,“ he said, adding the culture of all-ability schools would be negatively impacted if they lost their top 20 per cent of pupils.

”We've got to, if we're going to compete with the best in the world, get many more children to achieve well in our schools," he said.

Other people have raised concerns about the pressure reintroducing the 11-plus could put on children, and the sense of failure 11-year-olds who fail the test would feel.

Critics argue it is not fair to effectively limit children's life choices on the basis of one exam taken at a very young age.