1. Who benefits from grammar
schools?
A case study of Buckinghamshire, England
Richard Harris & Samuel Rose

2. Introduction
In the fifties, a golden age of opportunity,
almost 40% of those born to parents in the
lowest social income groups grew up to
join higher earners. By 1970 and ever
since, only one-third achieved this. It
cannot be a coincidence that, in between,
Harold Wilson‟s government abolished
grammar schools (Hastings, 2009).

3. The history of the British secondary
school system (in a nutshell)
Pre-1944, a patchwork of church-led schools
and public/private grammar schools
1944 Education Act (Butler Act)
– National secondary education system
• Tripartite system: grammar, secondary
modern and technical schools.
Late 1960s, dissatisfaction with the selective
system and a move to a comprehensive
system
1988 Education Act onwards, move away from
a comprehensive system with an increasingly
diverse system promoting competition,
independence and innovation.

4. Arguments against the selective system
The Butler Act took the concept of an academically
segregated education system as far as it could go, and
did so with dedication and determination. The technical
stream never really got off the ground. Parents
preferred their children to go to a grammar school if he
or she passed the eleven-plus, and without the
necessary public support, the money that technical
schools needed for qualified teachers and good
equipment was not forthcoming. Underlying the
stinginess was the old cultural distinction, moulded by
the great public schools and the ancient universities that
technical and vocational achievements were simply not
on a par with the elegance of classical scholarship
(Williams, 2010: 52).

5. Arguments for the selective system
Higher educational outcomes
Social mobility
– E.g. the Daily Telegraph newspaper
recently criticised David Cameron for
lacking “the will to admit that grammar
schools did more for working-class children
than a thousand free school meals”
(Randall, 2009).
– Posh and Posher: Why Public School Boys
Run Britain (first broadcast on BBC2 in
January 2011).

6. Some previous studies
Steedman (1980): pupils who entered
comprehensive schools had lower reading
and maths abilities, and tended to be from
lower SES groups. Controlling for this,
rates pupils advance in selective and
comprehensive schools are not statistically
different. (Uses National Child
Development Study)

7. Some previous studies
Marks et al. (1983): Controlling for SES
and non-British ethnicities, pupils in
selective schools attain more and higher
passes than those in comprehensives.
(Use LEA level data)

8. Some previous studies
Grey et al. (1983): Consider the
differences between LAs with and without
grammar schools. Comprehensive
systems had a levelling effect on
attainment, raising fewer pupils to the
highest levels but raising the average
attainment. (Postal survey of Scotland)

9. Some previous studies
Kerchkoff et al. (1996): Allowing for SES
and prior academic attainment, found that
highest ability students performed at
higher levels in selective systems and low
ability students performed better in
comprehensive systems but for most
students school type has little
effect.(National Child Development Study)

10. Some previous studies
Galindo-Rueda & Vignoles (2005):
Comprehensive schools reduced the gap
in educational achievement between the
most and least able students but on
average most pupils in the selective
system to better than those in mixed ability
schools. (National Child Development
Study)

11. Some previous studies
Boliver & Swift (2011): Going to a grammar
school did not make children from lower
SES backgrounds more likely to be
upwardly mobile in terms of income or
class. As a whole, the selective system
yielded no mobility advantage to children
of poorer backgrounds. (National Child
Development Study)

12. Some previous studies
Jesson (2000): Compares the value-added
of selective and comprehensive systems.
No support to claim that selective
education systems provide better GCSE
examination performance that
comprehensives. (Use a National
Collection Data Exercise from the mid-
1990s)

13. Summary
That selective systems of education produce better
learning outcomes is disputed (as is the claim they
support social mobility)
Whilst grammar schools may lead to higher
attainment for pupils who are successful in
entering them, the concern is that this comes at
the price of depressing the average attainment for
other pupils.
Majority of studies are reliant either on aggregate
data or on data that were collected during the
1960s and 1970s. Opportunity to update our
understanding of the effects of a selective system
to consider the present day.

14. Study
Buckinghamshire Of all pupils that
entered any one of
the most typical
school types in
Buckinghamshire,
stayed in that school
throughout the period
to GCSE, took those
exams in 2007, 2008
or 2009 and did not
have any statement of
educational need.
11 746 pupils in 32
schools

15. Two conditions benefitting argument in
favour of a selective system
First, that there is a value-added learning
outcome for an academically able pupil
attending a grammar school over and above
what would occur if that pupil had attended a
comprehensive school.
Second, that academically able pupils from
more deprived or socially excluded
backgrounds have no lower propensity to be
admitted to a selective school than equally
able pupils from more advantaged
backgrounds

16. Some initial descriptive statistics

17. Overlap in prior attainment scores

18. Data matching
Consider the pupils in the prior attainment
overlap between selective and non-
selecting schools
Match pupils in or not in selective schools
based on prior attainment in maths,
English and science.
Balanced sample of 3438 pupils (1719
pairs) with correlation of r = 0.99 in prior
attainment of the paired pupils.

19. Data modelling
Now use logistic regression to model the
probability the pupils in the balanced
sample successfully passed five GCSEs to
grade A to C (any five GCSES and
inclusive of English and maths).

20. Probability of success

21. Probability of success

22. Further consideration of the FSM group

23. Summary (but not conclusion, sorry!)
There are educational barriers to entry into
Buckinghamshire‟s grammar schools for
pupils from lower income households
insofar as that is evidenced by eligibility for
a free school meal and by the prevalence
of this group in the grammar schools
relative to other pupils.
There is an educational advantage
bestowed on those who attend a selective
school in Buckinghamshire relative to
those who do not, insofar as that
advantage is measured by increased
probability of attaining five GCSEs.

24. But…
It is not known is how the difference in
attainment is created. It could be that the
selective system acts to raise (to give
value-added to) the educational
achievements of those pupils in the
selective schools. Alternatively, it could be
that the prospects of pupils who are not in
selective schools are curtailed.

25. So…
Two further data matchings
– First, of the Buckinghamshire pupils who
attended a selective school with pupils of
similar prior attainment in the neighbouring
authority of Oxfordshire, which does not
operate a selective system.
– Second, of Buckinghamshire pupils who did
not attend a selective school but who had a
combined Key Stage 2 score greater than
the minimum amongst those who did attend
a selective school, also matched to pupils
of similar prior attainment in Oxfordshire.

26. Bucks selective Vs Oxfordshire

27. Bucks not selective Vs Oxfordshire

28. (Another) summary
Evidence to suggest that selective schools
are of educational benefit to those who are
able to attend them.
Yet, those who were unable to attend (but,
in principle, could have given their prior
attainment scores) would do better, on
average, in a comprehensive system.
FSM eligible pupils are under-represented
in the grammar schools, even when those
pupils had prior attainment scores that
exceeded those of other pupils in the
selective schools.

29. Conclusion
We suggested that two conditions should
be demonstrated to give support for a
selective system.
Of these, the first – a value-added learning
outcome – appears to exist but at a cost to
others not in the selective schools.
The second – that academically able
pupils from more deprived backgrounds
should have no lower propensity to be
admitted to a selective school – does not.

30. However
Any system that does not guarantee a pupil will
gain a place at a school of their choosing will risk
being responsible for creating winners and losers
in regard to who gains most from their schooling.
Grammar schools remain rare nationally. A more
common occurrence is one of geographical
constraints placed on admissions to schools, of
house prices rising around the most popular
schools, and of resulting „selection by mortgage‟.
Whether this is an adequate (or even better)
system for enhancing educational prospects and
for increasing social mobility is itself debatable