Adonis Denies Class War on Middle-Class Parents

By ANNE McELVOY

SCHOOLS minister Andrew Adonis today insisted that government calls to clamp down on schools selecting middle-class pupils were not part of a new education “class war”.

The standards minister Jim Knight last week urged parents and local authorities to complain if they felt popular schools were flouting admissions codes by screening out pupils from poorer homes.

But Lord Adonis denied that his department was targeting betteroff parents. “My view has always been that you cannot have a really successful state sector unless the middle classes feel fully engaged.

Our general tone should always reflect that,” he said.

With the appointment of Sir Mike Tomlinson as the new London schools commissioner, Lord Adonis pledged that reforms would be stepped up and extended, with more city academies across the capital.

“Parents of more able children need to be assured that all- ability schools really will develop the talents of their children to the full on a par with grammar and private schools,” he said. Asked about progress in London’s schools, he said: “I would say we are half-way through. When we started 10 years ago, people would say that London’s schools were the basket case of England.

They don’t take that view now.

But we certainly need more good schools and the academies programme can help deliver that.” Fears of a divide between different types of schools were highlighted when the head of Wellington school, Anthony Seldon, warned of “social apartheid”. Lord Adonis said: “Apartheid is an emotive term. But has there been a historically damaging division? The answer is yes.”"I would like to see every good independent school using its expertise sponsoring a school in the state.

I see many private schools as beacons of excellence and I want to inject their DNA into the state system.” But he denied that private schools which failed to sponsor city academies could be deprived of their charitable status. “It isn’t punitive.

I want willing partners, not unwilling ones,” he said.

On the issue of private schools opting out of the GCSE in favour of the international baccalaureate or the International GCSE, Lord Adonis said: “There is no policy of keeping these qualifications separate and I have no hostility to the IGCSE, subject to it being accredited.” Ministers are divided on whether the IGCSE could be imported into the state sector. “It doesn’t fit with the national curriculum & so it’s not at all clear that this would be the right way for us to go,” one minister said..

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