Like them or not, Theresa May’s grammar school plans will end the postcode lottery of education

Grammar Schools. Now there’s a potent pair of words. Mention them, and genial conversation will instantly shift into awkward silence or seething torrents of passion. In either case, reasoned argument is in short supply. Yet now that Theresa May seems committed to overturning Labour’s ban on opening new grammar schools, discussion is vital. But instead of rehashing the same arguments in favour of academically selective schools, or raking over the same problems they can cause, it’s important instead to look carefully at the evidence about whether grammar schools really do promote ‘social mobility’.

One of the major themes of anti-grammar salvos is that they don’t. And to make this point, the crudest approach is typically taken. This is to focus exclusively on the present state of grammar schools. Do this, and the figures thrown up are indeed problematic. The national average of pupils in state schools (including grammars) eligible for Free School Meals in the last six years (FSM6) – a common if unreliable marker of poverty – is 29 per cent.