THE HEADTEACHER at one of Oxford’s biggest secondary schools has welcomed a government U-turn on setting up new grammar schools across the county and beyond.

Theresa May had planned to lift a ban on creating a new wave of grammar schools in a key manifesto election pledge but education secretary Justine Greening said yesterday that the plan had now been scrapped.

When the pledge was absent from last week’s Queen Speech and in response to growing speculation Ms Greening was forced to admit yesterday that there would be no new grammar schools in the foreseeable future.

She said: “There was no education bill in the Queen’s Speech, and therefore the ban on opening new grammar schools will remain in place.”

In Oxford, Sue Croft, who is the headteacher at Glanville Road’s Oxford Spires Academy, welcomed the U-turn and said that there was no evidence that grammar schools were better than ‘normal’ schools.

She said: “This is great news. Grammar schools do not create better students.

“It would have been such a retrograde step backwards.

“It is simply a politicians experience of their own education and not a proper reasoned nor a developed argument.”

She added: “It looked more like a gambit to get votes from people that think there child should to a grammar school.

“Sending children to grammar schools is not in my view the solution. It is having a responsive and flexible system where there is social mobility within the system. That is the solution.”

Grammar schools, like state schools, are government funded but entry is only permitted through passing an entrance examination usually taken in the final year of primary school.

The current ban on opening new grammar schools was put in place in 1998 by the then Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Schools already opened are allowed to stay open and there are currently about 164 such schools across the country and another 69 in Northern Ireland. There are no grammar schools in Wales of Scotland.

Responding to the announcement that the current number would remain unchanged the executive member for education at Oxfordshire County Council appeared to distance herself from her party’s initial stance in support of grammar schools.

Conservative Hilary Hibbert-Biles said: “Selective education is ultimately an issue for national Government.

“As far as I’m concerned, what really matters is that every child receives the best possible education, suited to their needs, regardless of which school they attend.”

Supporters of the schools argue that because of their selectiveness and emphasis on academic achievement they result in higher standards and higher expectations for their pupils.