Theresa May this morning announced the biggest shake up to the education system in decades.
In her pledge to ensure the UK is a country that works for everyone, Mrs May will give every school an opportunity to become a grammar school. Reversing the ban on grammars Tony Blair introduced in 1998, Mrs May says the ban on new selective schools has been in place too long and has held many pupils back. Funding the £50m change, her plans come with strict conditions, any school wishing to become a grammar - selecting pupils on the basis of academic achievement - must abide by quotas for children from low-income homes. Or they will be forced to build a “high quality, non-selective” free school or set up or sponsor a primary feeder school in a deprived area. There will be no “return to the past” of mass 11-plus tests to ensure that schools do not separate children into “winners and losers”.

Universities charging fees of more than £6,000 will be required to establish a new school or sponsor an existing underperforming school – a significant change to higher education policy. Similarly, if private schools want to keep their tax breaks they will also have to do more to help the state sector either by sponsoring state schools or opening new ones.

 Asked at her speech at the British Academy in London how many new grammars she wanted to see opened, Mrs May said: “I’m not setting a quota for the number of schools that are suddenly going to become grammar schools.” “This is about local circumstances, it’s about what parents want locally. There will be institutions that will come forward, there may be groups of parents who want to set up a new free school as a selective school. This is about opening the system up to a greater diversity.” As part of her shake up; faith schools will be given permission to select more than 50% of pupils on the basis of their religion. In her first major speech, the prime minister said: "We are going to build a country that works for everyone, not just the privileged few. A fundamental part of that is having schools that give every child the best start in life, regardless of their background.” “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 . That is simply unfair.” "That is why I am announcing an ambitious package of education reforms to ensure that every child has the chance to go to a good school.” “This is not a proposal to go back to a binary model of grammars and secondary moderns, but to build on our increasingly diverse schools system.”

“It is not a proposal to go back to the 1950s, but to look to the future, and that future I believe is an exciting one. It is a future in which every child should have access to a good school place. And a future in which Britain’s education system shifts decisively to support ordinary working-class families.”   An Act of Parliament may be needed for the ban to be lifted on new selective schools opening, but a change in the law may not be required for grammar schools to expand. A consultation is to be held on ways to make new selective schools and expanding grammars more inclusive so that places are not limited to families who can "pay for tuition to pass the test."    

The prime minister concluded in her speech "This is about being unapologetic for our belief in social mobility and making this country a true meritocracy – a country that works for everyone."