High Peak Liberal Democrats

Tories’ “obsession with selective schooling is damaging the educational chances of children” – Pugh

The BBC reports: - England is to get its first "new" grammar school for five decades after ministers allowed a grammar school to build an "annexe" in another town.

Weald of Kent school in Tonbridge will open a site in Sevenoaks, Kent - side-stepping a ban on new grammar schools.

But Education Secretary Nicky Morgan said this would not "open the floodgates" to more schools being allowed to select by ability.

…The decision to allow the new grammar school site, with places for 450 girls, has raised expectations of similar bids in other parts of the country.

But Mrs Morgan said this was a "genuine expansion" of an existing school - describing it as "one school, two sites" - and it "does not reflect a change in this government's position on selective schools".

Liberal Democrat education spokesman, John Pugh MP said:

"It is not possible to have selection in schools without rejecting some pupils. Selective schooling leaves too many children behind at an early age and does not solve the serious problems with school places that many local authorities face.

"In a competitive high-skill economy we must ensure all schools achieve excellence by improving standards, but that is not done by creating new selective grammar schools that only benefit a few students.

"The Conservative Party's obsession with selective schooling is damaging the educational chances of children up and down the country."

* News Meerkat - keeping a look-out for Liberal Democrat news. Meerkat photo by Adair Broughton

Read more by News Meerkat or more about grammar schools or john pugh mp.

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