Schools that work for Everyone

Liz McInnes Excerpts

Monday 12th September 2016 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

I look forward to getting a chance to meet the organisation that my hon. Friend mentions. I reiterate his point, which is that we see grammars operating in parts of the country not to the detriment of the broader school community. This is not, as we saw in the past, a binary system with outstanding grammars and, by contrast, other schools—the 1950s and ’60s secondary moderns—that were not even testing the children that came through their doors, let alone really driving attainment. We are in a very different place now, with a much wider, more diverse system, but that is why we are also right to start opening it up.

[Liz McInnes (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab)]

I echo the words of my right hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart): far from opening up opportunities to all children, all this proposal does is open up opportunities to those children whose parents can afford private tutors for them, to train and coach them through the grammar school exam. I also pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin) for his excellent suggestion that our current grammar schools should pilot some of these ideas. The Secretary of State has talked about reforming the 11-plus exam. Why does she not start that reform with our existing grammars, make the exam tutor-proof and do what she says is going to happen, namely give all young people an opportunity?

[Justine Greening]

I know that the hon. Lady will welcome the fact that a number of grammar schools are already looking at how they can make sure that their test focuses more on the underlying abilities of the child than on the ability of their parents to pay for a tutor. We should also look at other ways in which we can overcome those barriers, but I do not think that the answer to that is to simply—[Interruption.]