More details of Michael Gove's attitude towards Grammar Schools

Further facts on Michael Gove’s attitude towards grammar schools:

I am grateful to Geoffrey Warner for providing this extract from the Financial Times, a November 2010 interview of Michael Gove(MG) by the Financial Times (FT) :

 

‘FT:..One of the other obligations on Local Authorities at the moment is the 1998 standards act, obligations on selection. Would you approve a free school that allowed selection? MG: No.

FT: Will you allow areas that don’t have selection at the moment to select?

MG: No.

FT: And will you allow the share of pupils within selective schools in selective education areas to increase?

MG: No.

FT: So you will not undo any of the 1998 provisions? MG: It’s not my intention to."

 

And I am equally grateful to Matthew Symington, of the East Anglian Daily Times, who has shared with me this part of an interview he conducted with the Education Secretary in December:

 

‘Question: John Major recently said that there was a lack of social mobility in this country, given that, and other people have said similar things, is it time to repeal the ban on opening up new grammar schools?

 

Gove: (Laughter) No, is the short answer. I mean you can have lots and lots of social mobility in a society without having to have selection at 11. There’s nothing wrong with grammar schools, and there’s a lot to celebrate in the existing grammar schools that we have, but it’s also the case that comprehensive schools can do a fantastic job, if they have the high aspirations that I’ve seen for example here in this primary school.

 

Question: Well why not allow them to be set up? Why not give people the opportunity if they want to, rather than even encouraging it, just letting it happen?

 

Gove: One of the difficulties is that in a county like Kent where you do have grammar schools, there’s been a sort of consensus for a while now, that you have some grammar schools and you have high schools or secondary moderns. If you set up a new grammar school in an area where it’s predominantly comprehensive provision then what you’re doing is saying there is one school or two schools here where some children can get in and others can’t, but the other schools remain comprehensive, you create within a county a dynamic which hadn’t existed beforehand, which won’t necessarily work in everyone’s interests. I think it’s also a distraction from the most important thing that we need to do, which is to concentrate on ensuring that all schools; comprehensive and primary, academy and maintained, do the very best job for all children.’