School systems must provide enough convenient school places for the population. There is no need for the system to provide different kinds of schools and school places for different parts of the population. Yet this is what most developed school systems do. The claim is regularly made by policy-makers that different types of school are more or less effective, or more effective for certain types of pupils – selective grammar schools for the most able, or technical schools for the less able, for example. There is little evidence for these claims (Gorard and Siddiqui 2018, 2019). Diversity of schooling make no clear difference to differential attainment. Selective systems are not more successful with equivalent students. But they do tend to segregate students by background – academic selection also segregates by poverty, faith-based schools segregate by ethnicity, and so on. Such diversity in the type of schools provided in one system is strongly associated with the increased clustering of poorer children within schools, and between economic areas.
This kind of clustering, of students with indicators of potential disadvantage, is then linked to further undesirable school outcomes. Exposure to a less varied set of possible friends at school leads to reduced role models for lower attaining pupils, less tolerant wider pupil attitudes, and higher degrees of social reproduction (Gorard et al. 2022). Equivalent student behaviours, interactions and achievements are interpreted differently in different settings as defined by the peer group. Going to school in segregated settings is therefore potentially damaging in a variety of ways – such as lowering aspiration, expectations, and participation for individuals. It reduces national and regional social and ethnic cohesion, and decreases trust in public institutions.
Similarly to widening participation to prestigious universities, access to selective schools could be increased for poorer students by reducing the test threshold for entry, or using some form of contextualised admissions (Boliver et al. 2002). But given that there is no overall gain and considerable harm done, it would be simpler and fairer simply to abolish selection at a young age. Of course, schools could still offer bespoke programmes and activities, including gifted and talented, for some sessions in the week. In all-ability schools, the provision does not have to be uniform for all sessions. But these programmes must be robustly evaluated for benefit, and take place in a wider setting wherein students of all types can interact for most of the week.
