The upcoming Labour party conference offers the party’s leader a historic opportunity to reshape Labour policy on education and to unite the party around a plan to provide excellent schools for all.
The prime minister’s recent decision to reopen the issue of grammar schools has trained a spotlight directly on the question of selection. It is now clear that there is no statistical evidence to support segregating children at 11. Theresa May is unable to quote any reputable educational expert in support of her government’s position. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development is highly critical of selection, and it is widely recognised that the most successful school systems in the world do not divide children in this way.
The intellectual and political case for selection has collapsed. So it is now appropriate to ask how the continuation of existing selection arrangements – in 163 grammar schools and a number of selective authorities – can be defended. It has been demonstrated beyond argument that less able children do worse and able children do no better in selective areas compared to non-selective ones, and it is almost always “ordinary, working-class children” who lose out.
In today’s world, we need to give all our children, particularly those from the poorest families, every opportunity to succeed. If it is established that extending selection damages both social cohesion and children’s learning, there can surely be no case for accepting its continuation anywhere in the country.
We therefore urge the Labour party, and whoever is elected its new leader, not just to resist current government proposals but to commit to the ending of educational selection in all state-funded schools and the establishment in all areas of a genuinely comprehensive and inclusive secondary education system that provides for all children according to their needs.
Melissa Benn Comprehensive Future
John Bolt Socialist Education Association
Fiona Millar Local Schools Network
Professor Danny Dorling Oxford University
Dr Michael Collins Kent Education Network
Rebecca Hickman Local, Equal, Excellent, Bucks
Peter Prior Excellent Education for Everyone, Windsor and Maidenhead
Alan Gurbutt Louth and Horncastle Constituency Labour party
Steven Longden Trafford Residents Against Selective Education
David Drew Stroud Constituency Labour party
Keith Lichman Campaign for the Advancement of State Education
Maggie Le Mare Birmingham
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