The equality-obsessed left will never understand grammar schools like poor, bright pupils do

As a Sevenoaks resident, I am simply relieved that the grammar school campaigning has now been put to bed after considerable dithering and delaying on the part of Nicky Morgan, Education Secretary. Today’s announcement might be headline news for most, but for us locals this row has dragged on for years. Notwithstanding the obvious political difficulties of sanctioning the creation of some 450 extra grammar school places, irrespective of whether the school calls itself an ‘annexe’ or not, Morgan dragged this on long enough before doing the right thing.

British education and how I would fix it

In a previous article, I used the BBC’s 3-part documentary series chronicling an experiment in which Chinese teachers took on a class of British kids for a month, to describe the ways in which I believe British education is broken. As the series concluded, we saw that the Chinese teachers, despite battling nothing short of mutiny among their students, achieved results 10% above the rest of the year group in examinations set by an independent research body. It was a slap in the face to the previously uber-confident headmaster Neil Strowger, who predicted the failure of the Chinese school with alacrity. His response summarised everything objectionable about education today.