The post you are reporting:
Having served on the KCC Education Committee for years and represented hundreds of children,
who have failed the eleven plus and witnessed the devastation caused to the whole family I am convinced
children should not be segregated by grammar schools .
We would all find our level / ability / achievement /potential etc without them.
Double blow to Tory hopes of a new dawn for grammar schools
As proposals for a 'satellite' school in Kent are rejected, Chief Inspector says the numbers fail to support claims that selection aids social mobility
To their supporters - including many among the Tory grassroots - grammar schools are an article of meritocratic faith, offering talented children from modest backgrounds the chance of a first-class education.
But the restoration of selective secondary education across the country looked further away than ever last night, after two hammer blows from the top of the education establishment.
First, the Government rejected plans to set up a "satellite" grammar school in the Sevenoaks area of Kent.
Then the Chief Inspector of Schools, Sir Michael Wilshaw, forcefully told a national newspaper that he did not see selection as a way to make up ground on other nations which had done better than the UK in international literacy and numeracy tests.
"Grammar schools are stuffed full of middle-class kids," he told The Observer. "A tiny percentage are on free school meals: 3 per cent. That is a nonsense. Anyone who thinks grammar schools are going to increase social mobility needs to look at those figures. I don't think they work."
Critics of selection have long argued that grammar schools pay too little attention to encouraging disadvantaged children to take up places - the national average for children on free school meals, the traditional discerner of poverty, is 17 per cent.
There are 164 remaining state grammar schools dotted around about 20 local authorities. Only a few, including Kent, retain a completely selective system.