The best comprehensive schools are more exclusive than grammars, with faith schools accounting for more than half of the 100 most socially selective secondaries in England, a study of new school selection has found.

The report, from the Sutton Trust education charity, found that rich and poor children often end up in different state schools from each other, even when normal residential segregation is allowed for. The researchers, led by Robert Coe of the University of Durham, suggest that parents from different social backgrounds may be choosing to apply to different types of schools so that their children are educated with “people like us”.

The study found that in the five most socially selective schools in the country - all comprehensives - less than 5 per cent of children are on free school meals, the yardstick of family poverty. This is despite rates of around 35 per cent or higher in the catchments from which they draw.

Self-selection by parents may also explain why both boys-only and girls-only schools were over-represented among the most socially selective schools. “Single-sex schools account for 34 of the 100 most selective, but only 10 per cent of the national population of non-grammar schools,” Dr Coe said. His study, seen exclusively by The Times, explodes a number of myths about school selection that will reopen the often fraught debate on the subject.

There are only 164 remaining grammar schools in England. The Government and the Conservatives have both said they will not abolish them, but have insisted they do not support the creation of any new ones.

The research was based on a detailed comparison of every pupil in the top 100 socially selective schools with other pupils living in the same area. It found that only 17 of the 100 most socially selective schools were grammar schools. However, it also found that grammar schools are enrolling half as many bright children from poor families as they could do.

Dr Coe, head of Durham's Centre for Evaluation and Monitoring, said there was some evidence that children who went to grammar school performed better at GCSE than their peers in comprehensives, gaining three quarters of a GCSE grade per subject more than similar pupils in other schools.

However, Dr Coe said the findings showed that some of the commonly held beliefs about grammar schools were simply not true. “We found no evidence that the performance of secondary moderns, or any schools creamed by grammars, was different from other schools,” he said.

He added that the ways in which school choice and selection reinforced disadvantage within the system as a whole are complex and subtle. “Abolishing grammar schools, without addressing these systemic problems, might do little or nothing to increase fairness overall,” he said.

The report suggests a review of grammar school entrance tests to see whether they deter bright pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds applying to grammar schools. One possibility is that all pupils in grammar school areas should be automatically entered for the test.

Shaun Fenton, head of Pate's Grammar School in Cheltenham, which is working with the Sutton Trust and 12 local primaries to broaden access to his school, suggested that entrance tests themselves could be made more fair. “We want a test that is as least susceptible to coaching as possible. It should be an intelligence test and a test you cannot prepare for,” he said.

The study covered the period 2001 to 2006 and so does not take account of the new school admissions code, designed to eliminate covert selection by schools.

Exclusion makes mockery of proud scholarly tradition

Lee Elliot Major

Grammar schools and faith schools have long, laudable traditions of teaching children from poor backgrounds. Yet the harsh modern reality is that they all too often stand as islands of academic excellence for the privileged few.

One of the most eye-catching findings from this study of the academic and social impacts of England's remaining grammar schools in fact concerns non-grammars. Faith schools and community schools controlling their own admissions make up the lion's share of England's most socially selective state secondary schools.

How can an apparently non-selective school have a 30 percentage-point difference between the proportion of its pupils on free school meals (FSM) and the proportion of FSM children in the local area? One possible explanation is that parents and pupils naturally sort themselves into distinct social groups.

Another is that schools are not playing fair with their admissions.

What no one can deny is that grammars are highly successful academically and their appeal to the middle classes is likely only to grow further. That is why the Sutton Trust believes that much more light needs to be cast on the question of whether grammars and other leading state schools are doing enough to open their doors to all potential pupils.

Unless something is done, our leading state schools will remain the preserve of the social elite, making a mockery of their proud scholarly traditions.

Dr Lee Elliot Major is director of research at the Sutton Trust

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