My article last weekend on the fight to get into Trafford’s grammar schools got quite the reaction. There are a grand total of 72 comments so far (admittedly one of which is mine), which would take me so long to respond to individually that we figured I might as well just write a second piece. In the comment section, lifelong enemies were forged, long lost schoolmates were reunited, and crucially, further questions were asked. Namely: should the grammar school system still exist? And if not, how do we get rid of it and, if it should remain, how can we make it better?
The various downsides of grammar schools were outlined (some might even say over-indexed on) in last Saturday’s piece. But if you didn’t have time to read it, here’s a quick summary. Trafford has a glut of grammars and the competition to get into them is fierce. Tens of parents, teachers, and tutors told me of the huge amount of pressure the 11-Plus exam puts on their child, as well as the financial pressure on the parents to cough up for private tutoring. Parents also complained of the knock on effects of the system, including grammar schools siphoning off the most ‘academic’ students, and accepting pupils from outside catchment areas, leading to local children losing out.
It transpires that getting rid of grammar schools in Trafford is a perfectly real possibility. Only 20% of parents from local feeder schools are required to force a ballot on whether or not selective admission should be retained — and on this ballot, a simple majority wins. One mother from Sale got in touch after the last article to inform me about this option. She referred to the vote as ‘Grexit’. “I would vote to leave I reckon,” she said. But clearly not all our readers feel this way. “Why would you want to get rid of some of the best performing state schools in the whole country?” wrote Bernie in the comments, while Kath said that she would like to see more grammar schools, as they “broaden opportunities” for financially disadvantaged children.
It just so happens that last Wednesday, this exact same argument was taking place at a council meeting in Trafford. Labour, who lead Trafford council, blamed grammar schools for contributing to a shortage of spaces throughout the borough, and in a moment of passion asked: “isn’t it time that Trafford schools were for Trafford children?” Meanwhile Conservative councillors argued that the grammars aren’t to blame, and that Trafford simply needs a new secondary school to make up for a scarcity of spaces. Labour responded: “There is no magic school tree to shake.”
I spoke to Nathan and Laura Evans the day before this meeting. They’re both local politicians; Nathan is the Conservative councillor for Hale Barns and Timperley South, and Laura ran as the Conservative mayoral candidate against Andy Burnham last year. I meet with them, fittingly, at the Con Club in Altrincham — they show up with a list of prime ministers who went to grammar school, and a copy of last Saturday’s article, with all their least favourite bits highlighted in yellow.
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Nathan can speak in some detail about Trafford’s grammar schools — he went to Stretford Grammar himself as a child. At the time, he tells me, it was a school for the “aspirational”, with a healthy mix of working-class and middle-class pupils, many of which hailed not from Trafford but from nearby Moss Side. Laura on the other hand has her own reasons to feel strongly about the education system. Due to a combination of dyslexia, dyspraxia, hearing problems, and a speech impediment, she was sent to a special education school at a young age, where she says she suffered due to the violent behaviour of other pupils, until she was moved to a private convent school.
Their own children weren’t specifically subject to the Trafford grammar melee but regardless, the pair tell me they're a pro-grammar school, partly due to the social mobility they provide. This a complex point — there is evidence that children from more deprived backgrounds perform better at grammar schools than in the comprehensive system, but reports have repeatedly shown that children from poorer families overall perform worse if they live in an area with selective schools, as, for the most part, they’re not the ones getting in.
But mostly, the Evanses are pro-grammar because they’re pro-choice. “I’m always alarmed by people trying to remove any form of choice,” Laura explains. “So we will advocate for grammar schools, faith schools, all our schools, because we believe in the lot.” Crucially, Laura also believes that it’s important to separate “academically-minded” children from those who take less of an interest in school, and are more likely to be disruptive, though she adds that she herself was one such student (of course, many of the parents from my last piece would argue that having parents who can afford tutoring doesn’t equate to being academically-minded).
So how do they respond to the suggestion that by separating these students, they are creating comprehensive schools of lesser quality than in other, grammar-less parts of Manchester? Nathan says that argument would be perfectly reasonable, if the schools’ results didn’t speak for themselves. “All our schools are up there,” he says. “All of them. It’s not that the grammars have taken all the best pupils.” He tells me that parents struggle to find places for their children in local comprehensives, Wellington School and Ashton on Mersey, because their quality is so outstanding. “Trafford’s got to be one of the best places in the world for education,” he says — a bold claim, and while I can’t stand it up, Trafford is ranked the highest in the North of England for the proportion of pupils attending Outstanding secondary schools.
The real issue at hand, according to Nathan and Laura, is scarcity. They tell me that grammar schools have become the “fall guy” for a larger problem in Trafford: there are simply not enough places for local children to go to local schools. According to the couple, this issue has been brewing in the borough for over a decade — spurned on by the opening of MediaCityUK, which saw the relocation of thousands of jobs from London to Manchester. Many of the jobholders opted to live in Trafford, in no small part due to the desirability of the local schools.
Nathan explains that the problem is worsening. Planned developments as part of Places for Everyone are due to bring thousands of new homes to the area, with no provisions for an additional school to be built. “We’ve got 7500 homes coming in the next six years and no plan for a school. There’s your failing,” he says. However, when he brought this point up in Wednesday’s council meeting, Labour argued that in order to get a new school they need “permission from the DfE, £26m, about 20 acres of land in the Altrincham and Sale area, 900 pupils and a sponsor. We have none of these things.”
So do the couple feel, as many of the parents I spoke to do, that the grammar school system of bringing in a percentage of pupils from out of the area is worsening the school spaces crisis in Trafford? In response, Nathan points out a moment in my previous article, where I quote a father saying that he doesn’t think it’s fair that his son should lose out on a place in a local grammar school to a high-performing child from Burnley. “There are no grammar schools in Burnley,” Nathan says. “In an ideal world, I’d like to lock them out. But actually, those children potentially need an opportunity.”
The solution then, he explains, is more grammar schools. Grammar schools all over Manchester — grammar schools everywhere. “If you scrap the grammar schools tomorrow, there’s still no places,” he says. “You’re still not getting into the school of your choice. The Burnley children need a grammar in Burnley. If they had one they wouldn’t be coming here.”
Trafford Green Party councillor Daniel Jerome has a different take on the matter. From his time door-knocking, he tells me he’s gathered that local parents believe that Trafford’s schools — grammar and otherwise — are good, but that they have concerns about the number of places, and about under-funding. Seeing as the council has made it clear that Trafford isn’t getting a new school in the near future, the focus should be on increasing funding for the schools that exist.
That Trafford’s comprehensives and grammars are both beloved doesn’t entirely add up with what I’ve heard from the parents. One mother, whose daughter goes to Loreto Grammar School, tells me that she considered sending her children to Trafford’s comprehensives, but while visiting one of them was told that they didn’t teach triple science, because they didn’t have enough higher-ability students to justify running the course. “It’s a problem,” she says, “especially as that’s the school my son will go to if he doesn’t get in [to a grammar].”
But Daniel Jerome argues that this isn’t due to the grammar system, but the academy system. The vast majority of Trafford’s secondary schools are academies, with Lostock High School being the only community school in the borough, according to the council’s website. “They control their own budgets, selection systems, and what they focus on,” Daniel explains. “We’d like to see those schools returning to local authority control.” Specifically, he reminds me, it’s the academy system that allows schools to select pupils from outside Trafford — which is exacerbating the widely acknowledged lack of spaces. I smell a third article in the works.
You can read Part One of the Trafford grammar school saga here.
Ophira Gottlieb
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