Nicky Morgan urged to approve new grammar school
I went to a grammar school. I think it was probably the making of me. I appreciate the arguments about the divisive nature of selective education. What I do know with almost a score of such schools in Lincolnshire is that little rural towns like Caistor and Alford are massively sustained by the draw they provide to parents and businesses. Perhaps a bit risky to offer these views but its not often the economic argument is put forward in this context. I do appreciate many Hinterland readers will not like me mentioning grammar schools so please take the comments from an economic rather than education perspective in the spirit in which they are offered.
This article tells us:
The Education Secretary was under growing pressure to approve the first grammar school in more than 50 years today as Boris Johnson branded the decline of academic selection “a tragedy”.
Nicky Morgan will be expected to make a ruling on plans for a new school in Kent within weeks following the submission of updated proposals by the local Conservative council.
Under plans, the grammar school would open in the town of Sevenoaks, being officially run as an “annexe” of the existing Weald of Kent school nine miles away.
The new single-sex school – which already has planning permission and a £16 million building fund – would admit 90 pupils a year when it opens in 2016, it emerged.
New plans for the school follow the rejection of previous proposals by Michael Gove, the former Education Secretary, after they failed to clear bureaucratic hurdles put in place by the previous Labour government.