THE Prime Minister’s proposal to bring back grammar schools is based not on any firm evidence of educational need but on nostalgia for a supposed golden past.

The reintroduction of selection and grammar schools would reverse 40 years of educational progress.

Indeed, Sir Michael Wilshaw, the head of Ofsted, has spoken out against Theresa May’s proposal, saying that it would stall progress in continuing to improve educational standards. Nearly 50 per cent of young people now go to university as opposed to just five per cent in the days of grammar schools.

Even more have qualifications that were then only available to the selected few.

It is the comprehensive school system that has opened up opportunities for the many.

Even more needs to be done to improve education for those that are failed by the system, but grammar schools do not offer any solution.

Schools in Cheshire deliver some of the best education in England without the need for selective grammar schools.

We need to support those schools in their mission to deliver highquality education for all with higher investment, the widest possible curricula and greater respect for teachers.

Congleton Labour Party calls on all Cheshire MPs, from whatever political party, to resist, in Parliament, the reintroduction of selection into education and to support education, not segregation.

Steve Ranger Secretary, Congleton CLP Balmoral Drive Holmes Chapel