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2 May 2026

Tag: comprehensives

Private schools extend Olympic medal lead but Eton stumbles

Twenty prime ministers may have once graced Eton’s playing fields, but – for the first time in nearly three decades – they did not produce a single medal winner for Team GB at an Olympic Games. England’s most famous private school is likely to be quietly mourning the lack of Old Etonians on the podium […]

GCSE results 2021: Top grades rise most at private and free schools

Private and free schools have seen the biggest jump in top grades in this year’s teacher-assessed GCSE results, figures show. Across England, the proportion of GCSE results overall at grade 7 and above—equivalent to a grade A under the previous system—rose to 28.7 per cent, up from 25.9 per cent last year and 20.7 per […]

Grammar school expansion threatens comprehensives’ pupil premium budgets

Proposals in the green paper for grammar schools to admit more pupils from low-income families will suck out cash from comprehensives that would help the most deprived children, warns the former pupil premium champion. Schools receive about £1,000 pupil premium funding per eligible child, but the cash follows the pupil – meaning if they move […]

Does an elite education benefit health?

Dr David Bann, Lecturer/Research Officer, Centre for Longitudinal Studies, UCL Institute of Education What have you been working on? Trying to better understand health inequalities in society using longitudinal data – in this case, data from a British study which began in 1970 (the 1970 British Cohort Study). In particular, how the education system relates to later […]

The case for allowing grammar schools to expand

The comprehensive system is no fairer than the selective schools system, argues campaigner Chris McGovern, and there are many good reasons why we should encourage grammar school expansion A satellite grammar school is to be opened in Sevenoaks and comprehensive school zealots are enraged. The “one size fits all” mantra is being threatened and the “high priests” and “high priestesses” […]

Can Corbyn get his way on comprehensives?

How will Jeremy Corbyn’s unwavering commitment to cull the 11-plus and the remaining grammar schools work, politically and practically speaking, now that he has become leader? For starters, it will mean a chance – at last – of starting a national conversation about the extent and reality of selection in England in the 21st century […]

Andy Burnham and the too-vague really-lame education policy

“I will restore a local role in overseeing schools, rejecting the growing market of free schools and academies.” That’s it. That’s Andy Burnham’s big school vision as outlined in his manifesto. He will restore a local role in overseeing schools and new schools will not be academies. What a weird thing to pledge. For a […]

Coasting concept is ‘fatally flawed’ for comprehensive and grammar schools

A school will be deemed to be coasting if 60% of its pupils fail to achieve 5 GCSE grades A*to C including English and Maths. This is an arbitrary benchmark defining the school. The policy which spawned the concept is directed not at the school’s pupils but at the school itself. Since the underlying principle […]