Grammar schools have no overall impact on attainment, EPI claims

Once prior attainment and pupil background is taken into considering, grammar schools have no overall impact on pupils’ attainment, according to a major new study from the Education Policy Institute (EPI).

The study found that while grammar schools perform highly in raw attainment terms, with 96.7 per cent of their pupils achieving five A*-C GCSEs compared to the national average of just over 57 per cent, this is driven by the very high prior attainment and demographics of pupils in grammar schools.

Despite Prime Minister Theresa May putting social mobility at the heart of her proposals to reintroduce selection, the EPI found no significant positive impact on social mobility. The gap between children on free school meals (FSM) and all other children is wider in selective areas (34.1 per cent) than in non-selective areas (27.8 per cent).

The study suggests this is due to the fact that FSM pupils are under represented in grammar schools, as by the time the 11-plus entry exam is taken a disadvantaged attainment gap has already tarted to emerge.

Only 2.5 per cent of grammar school pupils are eligible for FSM, compared to 13.2 per cent in all schools and the EPI found that grammar schools attract a larger number of high attaining non-FSM pupils from other areas, meaning there is a disproportionately large number of high attaining, non-disadvantaged children.

Interestingly, the analysis also found that high attaining pupils perform just as well in high quality non-selective schools as in selective schools and if you compare high attaining pupils in grammar schools with similar pupils who attend high quality non-selective schools, there are five times as many high quality non selective schools as there are grammar schools.

Painting a wholly critical picture of grammar schools ability to improve attainment, the EPI suggests that the sponsored academies programme has ‘had a more positive impact on the attainment of disadvantaged pupils compared with the present grammar school system’.

Responding to the report, Malcolm Trobe, interim general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, has called on the government to ‘listen to the evidence’.

He said: “It is vital that government policy is based on evidence rather than nostalgia and anecdote.

“This report adds to the already substantial evidence. It clearly shows that creating more selective schools will not raise overall educational standards in England and is likely to widen the attainment gap between rich and poor children.

“The government must now listen to the evidence and abandon its misguided policy. It has to focus on the critical issues of a teacher recruitment crisis and severe funding pressures instead of pursuing a proposal which is a dangerous distraction.”