There are many reasons why St Joseph’s College, a Catholic grammar in Stoke-on-Trent, is a thriving school. Its academic performance at GCSE and A-level puts it in the top 200 in the country. Its pastoral care is sensitive and exhaustive. Its extra-curricular activities are the best the state system has to offer. And its head teacher, Roisin Maguire, is, says Ofsted, an “outstanding leader”.

But it’s the smell of fresh bread, wafting from a DT laboratory, that gets me. It’s the interrupted year 9 French class who wait, in turn, to give different reasons why each and every one of them “loves coming to school”. It’s the first XV rugby team sheet stuck to the noticeboard in the school reception. And it’s the sixth-former, Katie Bailey, who has no fear in asking to plunder my contacts book so that she can “get into journalism”.

Astonishingly, this happy, confident establishment – one of 164 grammar schools remaining in the country – is threatened with closure. Under plans drawn up by Serco, the private company enlisted by Stoke-on-Trent council to tackle the authority’s educational needs, it is possible that St Joseph’s could close in 2010 to be replaced by a nonselective Catholic school on the same site, with a different set of governors and staff. It would be the first grammar school to shut for nearly 20 years.

Stoke-on-Trent, a Labour council, turned to Serco because it was in freefall, having been named the third worst local authority for education in the country. Serco, in turn, has responded by drafting four proposals to restructure the authority’s secondary schools. The “favoured” proposal at present is to shut all the secondary schools in the area and reopen 12 new secondary schools – a mixture of trust schools and academies – and four new special schools in the district, with a £200m boost in funding.

The restructuring is, says Ged Rowney, director of children and young people’s services, a “great opportunity” and one that it is “essential we grasp”. This is all well and good. Stoke-on-Trent does need to do something about its secondary schools. But why meddle with its best? The council says that for the process to be “fair” it needs to consider all schools in its restructuring process, not just the failing ones. Part of the problem for Stoke is that its schools are 23% under capacity – which means, for efficiency’s sake, some will have to shut. But again, why St Joseph’s?

“It’s something I find very hard to fathom,” says Maguire. “Yes, we’re selective, but that’s not why we’re good. There are selective schools in this country who are not doing so well. It’s about what you do with the kids once you get them. This school isn’t a good school because it’s Catholic or it’s selective. It’s a good school because we know every child and we love them and care for them and we challenge them.”

Maguire explains that unlike most grammar schools, St Joseph’s does not simply take the brightest pupils. Indeed, Ofsted does not even class St Joseph’s as “a grammar”. It does have an entrance test, but it is one that 75% of applicants pass. After that, entrance is determined by “faith criteria”, whereby the child’s parents are asked to fill out a form, co-authored by their relevant “religious leader”, on how righteous their 11-year-old is. About 80 students in every year are Catholic and the remaining 30-40 are from a variety of other faiths. In the sixth form, St Joseph’s takes another 50-70 pupils from nearby city state schools.

“There are many very bright children who do not get into St Joseph’s,” says Maguire. “We’ve built strong links in the community – my best English teacher now works two days a week in other city schools. And children from those schools come here for revision classes, too.

“Stoke has so many problems. It is right at the top of the league tables for teenage pregnancies and Neets [young people not in education, employment or training], and right at the bottom for education. We are one of the things that Stoke can be really proud of. Why would you want us to go to the wall?”

St Joseph’s is not quite at the wall yet. Rowney insists that although the closure of all the schools and the reopening of new secondaries is the “favoured” option, there are three others that would keep St Joseph’s open. But if the favoured option does come to pass when the final decision is made in February, you can be sure there will be little noise from Westminster.

Labour’s Department for Children says it will keep out of local authority decisions. But it has made it clear that it wishes to make it easier for parents to shut grammar schools.

Apart from restructuring plans, such as the one Stoke-on-Trent is proposing, the only way to shut a selective school now is by parental ballot. The ballot requires 10 parents to trigger a petition and then 20% of parents in the affected area to sign it. Since this law was passed in 1998, only one ballot has come to fruition – and it failed to close the selective school.

Labour wishes to make the system simpler by shortening the ballot process and, possibly, by allowing petitioning parents access to the contact details of other parents in the area. “It is absolutely right,” said Jim Knight, the schools minister, last month, “that we keep the parental ballot arrangements under review. We are firmly committed to giving local parents the right to abolish selection at existing grammar schools.”

The modernising Conservative front bench might now know where it stands on this issue, but the party as a whole continues to twist its knickers on grammar schools. When David Willetts, then shadow education spokesman, said the 11-plus exam “entrenches advantage” he set off a backlash among backbenchers, who consider the maintenance of grammar schools a touchstone Conservative issue.

They had, perhaps, forgotten that Margaret Thatcher and John Major failed to use their 18 years to revive the 11-plus.

David Cameron considers the row over grammar schools to be the “shallow end” of the education debate – and has said he admires Labour’s academies programme. He has, however, indicated that he will shut no grammar schools. So don’t expect a raging debate at next week’s prime minister’s questions about St Joseph’s College.

“The Tories just can’t get involved,” says Sam Freedman, of the Policy Exchange think tank. “It doesn’t work for them politically. I can’t see them intervening. As for Labour, that’s tricky. There may be some backbenchers who are ideologically opposed to a private company restructuring a local authority’s schools and who may feel strongly enough that they wish to fight to save this one school. But then again, it’s a grammar school. They’re between a rock and a hard place.”

The parents and pupils of St Joseph’s are already making a noise. The website of the local Sentinel newspaper, which broke the story last Monday, has been bombarded with comments from parents and old pupils. Facebook and MySpace sites have been set up to organise support. A petition on the Downing Street website already has hundreds of names. Why not add your own?

To sign the petition on the Downing Street website, go to tinyurl.com/2he7kt

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