第13节

Smaller independent schools who do not have the capacity to take on full sponsorship of a local state school will be asked to provide more limited help such as direct school-to-school support where appropriate. This could include supporting teaching in minority subjects such as further maths or classics, which state schools often struggle to make viable. It could include ensuring their senior leaders become directors of multi-academy trusts; providing greater access to their facilities and providing sixth-form scholarships to a proportion of pupils in year 11 at each local school.

But for those with the capacity and capability, we will ask them to go further and actually sponsor or set up a new government-funded school in the state sector and take responsibility for running it and ensuring its success.

Alternatively, we will ask them to fund a number of places at their own school themselves for those from modest backgrounds who cannot afford to pay the fees.

We know this can work. For example, Westminster School is the key partner in sponsoring Harris Westminster Sixth Form, where students at the free school share the facilities and teaching expertise of Westminster School.

In my own constituency, Eton College sponsors Holyport College, offering Holyport pupils access to its sports facilities and the chance to join its educational activities.

And before it became a state-funded academy, Belvedere School in Liverpool worked with the Sutton Trust to create an Open Access Scheme where places were awarded purely on the basis of academic merit, and parents were then asked to pay on a sliding scale of fees fairly tailored according to their means.

第14节

I want all independent schools with the appropriate capacity and capability to take these kinds of steps.

I want them to play a major role in creating more good school places for children from ordinary working families; because this government is about a Britain that works for everyone – not just a privileged few.

There is one final area where we have placed obstacles in the way of good new schools – obstacles that I believe we need to take away.

The debate over selective schools has raged for years. But the only place it has got us to is a place where selection exists if you’re wealthy – if you can afford to go private – but doesn’t exist if you’re not. We are effectively saying to poorer and some of the most disadvantaged children in our country that they can’t have the kind of education their richer counterparts can enjoy.

What is ‘just’ about that? Where is the meritocracy in a system that advantages the privileged few over the many? How can a meritocratic Britain let this situation stand?

Politicians – many of whom benefited from the very kind of education they now seek to deny to others – have for years put their own dogma and ideology before the interests and concerns of ordinary people. For we know that grammar schools are hugely popular with parents. We know they are good for the pupils that attend them. Indeed, the attainment gap between rich and poor pupils is reduced to almost zero for children in selective schools. And we know that they want to expand.

They provide a stretching education for the most academically able, regardless of their background, and they deliver outstanding results.

In fact, 99% of existing selective schools are rated good or outstanding – and 80% are outstanding, compared with just 20% of state schools overall.

So we help no one – not least those who can’t afford to move house or pay for a private education – by saying to parents who want a selective education for their child that we won’t let them have it.

There is nothing meritocratic about standing in the way of giving our most academically gifted children the specialist and tailored support that can enable them to fulfil their potential. In a true meritocracy, we should not be apologetic about stretching the most academically able to the very highest standards of excellence.

第15节

We already have selection to help achieve this in specialist disciplines like music and sport, giving exceptionally talented young people access to the facilities and training that can help them become world class. I think we should have more of this. But we should also take the same approach to support the most academically gifted too.

Frankly, it is completely illogical to make it illegal to open good new schools. So I want to relax the restrictions that stop selective schools from expanding, that deny parents the right to have a new selective school opened where they want one, and that stop existing non-selective schools to become selective in the right circumstances and where there is demand.

In return, we will ensure that these schools contribute meaningfully to raising outcomes for all pupils in every part of the system.

In practice this could mean taking a proportion of pupils from lower income households, so that selective education is not reserved for those with the means to move into a catchment area or pay for tuition to pass the test.

They could, as a condition of opening a new selective school, be asked to establish a good, new non-selective school. Others may be asked to establish a primary feeder school in an area with a high density of lower income households to widen access. They might even partner with an existing non-selective school within a multi-academy trust or sponsor a currently underperforming non-selective academy.

But the principle is clear: selective schools have a part to play in helping to expand the capacity of our school system and they have the ability to cater to the individual needs of every child. So the government will make up to ?50 million a year available to support the expansion of good or outstanding existing grammars.

Now I know this will be the source of much debate in the consultation over the coming months, so I want to address very directly some of the key arguments made by those who oppose the expansion of grammar schools.

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