Justine Greening, the education secretary, has struggled to produce evidence for expanding grammar schools, as the chief inspector of schools claimed returning to such as a system would cause Britain to fail as a nation.



The cabinet minister argued that more grammar schools would “turbo-charge” the prospects of bright children from poorer backgrounds, but struggled to identify the evidence or political mandate for making the reforms.

She was confronted on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme with comments from Sir Michael Wilshaw, the chief inspector, who said it would be bad for the country to move towards a system where only a small proportion of children have a good education.

“We will fail as a nation if we only get the top 15% to 20% of our children achieving well. We have got to get many more children achieving well. My fear is that dividing children at 11 and creating grammars and secondary moderns – because that is what we will do – then we won’t be able to achieve that ambition,” Wilshaw said.

Greening, who was educated at a comprehensive school, said she had a huge respect for Wilshaw but the proposals being set out by May would insist that new grammars accept more children from poorer backgrounds or sponsor other schools.



The education secretary said children from poorer backgrounds who got into grammars did twice as well as other children in grammars. But she had no answer to why it would improve the education and prospects of poorer children overall, including those who do not get into grammar schools.

“We want to see a 21st-century approach on grammars. Grammars are stuck in the past from a policy perspective and it is time to open up that debate and look at how they can work for a 21st-century education system in Britain.”

The Conservative MP Dr Sarah Wollaston suggested the changes risked undermining the prime minister’s promise to reduce inequality.



She told the Today programme: “If you stand on the steps of Downing Street and talk about wanting to reduce inequality, I think you have to follow the evidence and, I’m afraid, sooner or later you have to deliver on evidence-based policies.”

She added: “I think we need to be very careful that we’re not ending up giving one message but introducing policies that go in the opposite direction.”

Wollaston said allowing faith schools to select 100% of their pupils by religion, which May is also due to announce, was a “regressive step” that she would vote against in parliament.

Greening said the government would continue to raise standards in all schools while allowing parents to have the choice of sending their children somewhere where they would be academically stretched.

Challenged to identify the government’s mandate for carrying out such reforms, Greening said Theresa May “was very clear when she came into Downing Street that she wanted to create a country for everyone”.

Pressed again on the fact that the policy was not in the Conservative manifesto, she argued that David Cameron had paved the way for existing grammars to expand.

Theresa May will give more details of her new policy at a speech in central London on Friday. She will announce an end to the ban on the creation of new grammar schools and attempt to head off critics by proposing measures intended to prevent poorer children losing out.

The prime minister will end days of speculation by confirming that her government will reverse the “arbitrary” ban on the creation of new grammar schools that has been in place since 1998.

She will say: “For too long we have tolerated a system that contains an arbitrary rule preventing selective schools from being established – sacrificing children’s potential because of dogma and ideology. The truth is that we already have selection in our school system – and it’s selection by house price, selection by wealth. That is simply unfair.”

She will confirm that new selective schools will be allowed to open and that existing schools will be able to become grammars. “This is about being unapologetic for our belief in social mobility and making this country a true meritocracy – a country that works for everyone,” she will say.

As well as expanding selection by academic ability, May is also expected to signal that new faith schools will be able to choose more pupils on the basis of their religion, ending the admissions cap, which was aimed at preventing children from being segregated by faith, another measure likely to prove controversial.

New free schools, which are state funded, are allowed to select only half of their pupils on faith grounds, under the rule, which will now be lifted.

The Catholic church lobbied for the rule to be changed but, as recently as last September, the Department for Education said it had no intention of rewriting the rules.

May’s move to expand grammar schools is likely to prove controversial with the Conservative modernisers she banished to the backbenches, as well as teaching unions and education campaigners.

Cameron said in 2007 that he thought the debate on grammars was “pointless”, because “parents fundamentally don’t want their children divided into sheep and goats at the age of 11”.

May will promise to consult on ways to mitigate the risk that poor children – who tend to be under-represented in existing grammars – are relegated to sink schools as selection is expanded. Options in a paper expected to be published on Monday will include:

• Forcing new selective schools to take a minimum proportion of pupils from lower income households.

• Requiring them to establish a new non-selective free school, or a primary feeder school in an area with a high density of lower income households.

• Requiring them to sponsor an existing underperforming, non-selective academy school.

The plans will form part of a wider package of education reforms, including an effort to narrow the gap between universities and the schools system. Universities that want to raise tuition fees for students will be obliged to make their expertise available to younger learners, by setting up a new school or take over an existing, failing school, for example.