Schools that work for Everyone

Barbara Keeley Excerpts

Monday 12th September 2016 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

This is about opening up choice for parents, including those who want grammar school places but do not have them, and about enabling more faith schools to open. About a third of the schools in our system are faith schools and many of them have played an outstanding role in educating our children. We should enable them to do more.

[Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)]

I was the council cabinet member for education and children’s services in Trafford, which retained selection at 11. Much as we tried to level up and to improve all our schools, I can tell the Secretary of State that the selective system there was expensive in budget terms, it could be divisive and it caused underperformance in a number of schools. In my experience, selection at 11 did not aid social mobility. Where is the evidence that it does?

[Justine Greening]

The evidence is in the fact that 99% of those schools are good or outstanding. They are a model that delivers great education. The evidence also comes from the Sutton Trust, which has tracked how children on free school meals do disproportionately well when they get into grammars. As for the hon. Lady’s challenge on the broader system, I think that grammars should rise to it in terms of raising attainment. As I pointed out earlier, however, the Sutton Trust’s research has also shown that there is no discernible reduction in attainment among children who are outside the grammar school system.