| SPOTLIGHT |
The Comprehensive Future campaign group has said it is seeking legal advice on whether there is potential to challenge the funding of a ‘satellite’ selective school using Department for Education (DfE) budget.
The group’s comments came as two grammar schools in Kent – Barton Court Grammar School in Canterbury and Queen Elizabeth Grammar School in Faversham – made bids for DfE funding to open a 1,050 pupil ‘satellite’ grammar school in Herne Bay.
Dr Nuala Burgess, Chair of Comprehensive Future, said: “The legal position is very clear – new grammar schools are illegal. It’s a shocking use of education funding to try to bypass the law and build a new grammar school via the backdoor. There is no democratic mandate for the creation of new selective schools.
“If this goes ahead, there’s nothing to stop the DfE from building dozens of dubious ‘annexe’ grammar schools all around the country, all without parliamentary scrutiny, and all in breach of the law.”
The Government’s Selective School Expansion Fund awards £50m each year to grammar schools that can demonstrate ‘ambitious and realistic’ plans to boost the number of disadvantaged pupils accessing the schools.
Dr Burgess added: “The government is expanding selective education and ignoring all the evidence that such a system harms the life chances of our poorest pupils. Expanding grammar schools deprives three or four surrounding schools of their most talented pupils, dramatically impacting on attainment levels. This is why Kent’s results are so poor, and the problem certainly isn’t going to be fixed by creating another grammar school.”
