Mrs May’s pledge to re-introduce grammar schools where there is a local desire for them is not merely sensible: it is scriptural.
Let me declare my interest: I went to a Catholic grammar school. The majority of pupils were there having passed the 11-plus, but there were not enough bright Catholics to fill all the places (those who failed were normally sent to Cardinal Newman’s secondary modern in another part of the city). So the surplus places were offered to Protestant children on a fee-paying basis. Most of them had failed the 11-plus but were accepted on the basis of the school’s own entrance exam. I was one of the latter.
