15th August 2018 9:00
By Blue Tutors
There are 11,000 more students at grammar schools now than there were in 2010, and that figure is projected to increase by a further 6,000 students by 2021. Reported on the BBC, this comes following the news that the government is releasing £50m to existing grammar schools to grow their intake, and the latest figures show that the intakes have been growing rapidly anyway. New grammar schools cannot be created in the UK, but this hasn’t stopped a dramatic increase in the number of grammar school places available.
Grammar schools are controversial because they allocate places based on students’ performances in the 11 Plus, and this gives them a huge advantage over neighbouring schools when comparing GCSE results. Many parents spend a lot on private tutoring for the 11 Plus exams, and this increases the chances that the majority of grammar school students will come from higher income backgrounds.
In an attempt to change the perceived inequality in winning a grammar school place, on top of the £50m funding the government has offered to schools accepting students from lower income backgrounds, there is a scheme called Pupil Premium Funding. Under this initiative, grammar schools receive extra funding if they accept any student who received free school meals in the previous 6 years. Of the 163 grammar schools in England, 61 do not give any priority to poorer students, and a further 9 only use pupil premium status to award a place when deciding between two students with the same 11 Plus score. It’s argued that this means the vast majority of grammar school places will be awarded to students who have been tutored in the 11 Plus exams and have received the highest test score.
Quotas for grammar school intakes have been discussed, and Anna Vignoles from Cambridge University says that they are a good way of ensuring that more lower income students are accepted in grammar schools. Some schools use a ‘tie-break’ system where, if two students achieve the same score in their 11 Plus, the student from a poorer background will be accepted. However, this doesn’t guarantee that many low income students will be accepted because their more affluent counterparts tend to do better on the tests.