A CAMPAIGN to stop schools selecting pupils by the back door, enforced by local “hit squads”, is being floated as a compromise to break the deadlock over Tony Blair’s unpopular school reforms.
Ministers have indicated to MPs that they are prepared to rewrite the admissions code and toughen the language banning selection by secondary schools, which backbenchers believe is too weak. They have said in addition that the Education Bill, due in February, will make it clear that schools are obliged to comply. Under current law schools must only “have regard” for the code.
In a further attempt to quell alarm on Labour’s backbenches that new independent trust schools could still get round the code, they are prepared to go further and place a new legal duty on local education officials to enforce the code.
Under the current system, local education authorities must wait until a parent complains that a school has broken the admissions code before taking action. Even if they do receive complaints, the LEA may decide not to risk upsetting one of its favourite schools and choose to take no action.
The moves are being considered because of the outcry among Labour MPs that the latest education reforms go too far in breaking up the traditional comprehensive system. They may not yet go far enough to head off a damaging revolt when the measures are finally put to a vote before Easter.
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There will be a separate call tomorrow from the Labour Left for “modern comprehensives” when Lord Kinnock publishes a report calling for measures to force schools to take a fair share of pupils from deprived areas and those with special needs.
The former Labour leader will lend his weight to a further demand for an end to charitable status for private schools to divert £100 million a year to the neediest state pupils. The 165 grammar schools should also be forced to become comprehensive by ending the “cancer of selection”, the report from the left-wing Compass think-tank adds.
The report, by Melissa Benn, Tony Benn’s daughter, and Fiona Millar, Alastair Campbell’s partner, will seen by disgruntled Labour backbenchers as an alternative schools vision. They are worried that proposed new “independent” state trust schools and the growing number of sponsored academies will cherry-pick pupils, leaving the disadvantaged and low achievers behind.
Ministers accept that a tougher admissions code has to be properly enforced and are working on plans to give school admissions forums powers to police the new system.