Experts tell Commons education select committee that poorer pupils are less likely to get into grammar schools

A tutor-proof 11-plus test to determine whether a pupil should gain admission to grammar school does not yet exist and, according to the schools minister, Nick Gibb, remains “the holy grail” of selective education. Gibb was giving evidence on Tuesday to MPs on the Commons education select committee, who were carrying out an “evidence check” on government proposals to overturn the ban on new grammar schools.

Critics of academic selection say the 11-plus favours those whose families can afford to pay for expensive private tuition in order to pass the test. Attempts to come up with a test that is resistant to coaching have so far failed – and some claimed it had even made the situation worse, MPs were told.

‘Tutor-proof’ 11-plus professor admits grammar school test doesn’t work Read more

The government’s chief scientific adviser, Tim Leunig, told the committee that a perfect, tutor-proof test did not yet exist. Buckinghamshire, which has an entirely selective school system, had attempted to come up one, but it had not worked, he said.



There have been experiments elsewhere. In Birmingham in the King Edward VI family of schools, for example, there is a different pass mark for children from deprived backgrounds who are eligible for free school meals.

Asked if he thought it was possible to come up with a completely tutor-proof test that would help level the playing field, Gibb said: “That would be the holy grail. That’s something we are consulting on. We want to receive evidence from specialists in this area.”

Gibb and Leunig were giving evidence following an earlier session during which education experts including Rebecca Allen, director of the research organisation Education Datalab, and Anna Vignoles, professor of education at the University of Cambridge, outlined their concerns about the expansion of selective education.

They told the committee they thought it would be extremely difficult to come up with a tutor-proof test. They also said evidence showed that poorer pupils were less likely to get into grammar schools, and that the secondary moderns that coexist with grammars not only lose their best pupils, but also struggle to recruit the best teachers, who are drawn to the selective schools.

The minister refused to accept however that increased selection in the education system would lead to greater social segregation. Gibb said grammar schools would be required to help raise standards in neighbouring schools and would face sanctions if they failed to do so. He said the government wanted to introduce “the DNA” of grammar schools into non-grammars, so that they would benefit from their expertise.

“It’s not about segregation,” he said. “It’s not going back to the binary system of the 50s and 60s. We live in a quite different school system now. We don’t have those secondary moderns, which provided very poor education, now.” He said under the new system, the consequence of not going to a selective school was that a pupil would go to “one of these very good comprehensives”.

Asked about international evidence on greater selection in education, Dr Leunig referred MPs to the Dutch system, whereby children are selected by academic ability at 12. The vast majority of children sit what is known as the Cito test and are then divided into different schools, ranging from highly academic to more technical.

Leunig pointed out the Netherlands scored better in the 2012 international Pisa tests than the UK: in reading, the Netherlands was ranked 15th, compared with the UK at 23rd, and in maths, the Netherlands was in 10th place, with the UK in 26th. “Selection is compatible with doing well,” he said.

The government is currently consulting on lifting Tony Blair’s 1998 ban on new grammar schools in order, it claims, to improve social mobility and enable poorer students to get the best education. The debate is likely to continue until the government reports its findings next spring.

Meanwhile, Labour is claiming that new analysis of data shows selective areas have some of the worst records for promoting social mobility and the widest gaps in attainment between disadvantaged pupils and their peers. The attainment gap is worse than the national average in eight out of nine fully selective areas for which data is available, while for partially selective areas the figures are 16 out of 26 areas, according to Labour.

Lucy Powell MP, Labour’s former shadow education secretary, said: “The evidence is clear: selective areas have some of the worst records for promoting social mobility and the widest gaps in attainment between disadvantaged pupils and their peers.”

