Grammars make society mobile

Report by Rhys Griffiths

Head teacher speaks out on school, controversy

GRAMMAR schools are still one of the best ways of increasing social mobility and attainment, according to one Dover head teacher.

Sally Lees, who runs the Dover Grammar School for Boys, told the Express the overwhelming majority of pupils leaving her school to go to university are the first in their family to do so.

She thinks the district’s grammar schools, two in Dover and Sir Roger Manwood’s School in Sandwich, still represent one of the best opportunities for children from deprived areas to gain access to further education, and the benefits which come from it.

Her comments came after a major report into social mobility was published last week warning that access to the top professions was becoming out of reach for the middle classes as well as kids from the poorest backgrounds.

Although she recognised that social background does have a major impact on where children end up in later life, the teacher insisted selective education has a big role to play in increasing opportunities.

Mrs Lees said: “It is a sad fact that in England today the strongest indication of whether you will do well at school has less to do with your ability than with where you were born on the social scale.

“Grammar schools were originally designed to offer a challenging education to able pupils from less affluent families. Their very purpose was to provide a means of social mobility and many of our current politicians and professionals are a product of that system.

“Here in Kent, particularly in the coastal areas including Dover, the grammar schools play a vital part in this. At my school more than 90 per cent of our sixth form students go on to university, and for 80 per cent of them they will be the first in their family ever to do so. This is a statistic of which we are very proud.”

The report into social mobility, which was overseen by former cabinet minister Alan Milburn, found the top professions such as law and medicine are increasingly beyond the reach of all but the most wealthy.

Selective education was widely ignored by the report’s authors, who instead focused on the need to raise aspirations and the impact of so-called pushy parents.

Mr Milburn said: “Too many people encounter doors that are shut to their talents. We need a new focus: unleashing aspiration, not just beating poverty.”
 

Social Mobility

The report’s findings.

Up to nine in 10 new jobs in Britain in the future will be jobs like accountancy or law.

Those who will fill those jobs are growing up in families better off than seven out of 10 families in Britain.

The typical doctor or lawyer of the future will be growing up in a family better off than five in six of all families in the UK.

The typical engineer or teacher will be growing up in a family better off than two in three of all families.

More than half of such occupations are currently dominated by people from independent schools, which are attended by just seven per cent of the population.