Grammar schools growing - despite Labour laws designed to stop selective schooling

The number of pupils attending grammar schools has soared more than a fifth under Labour, official figures revealed yesterday.

Selective state secondary schools are educating almost 30,000 more children than in 1997 after expanding to meet rising parental demand.

The growth in pupils  -  enough to fill nearly 30 new schools  -  will embarrass ministers who passed laws in 1998 aimed at preventing an increase in selective schooling.

While no new grammar schools have been built, the existing 164 selective schools have taken on new classrooms to accommodate extra pupils.

The figures from the Department for Children, Schools and Families show that 156,798 pupils were registered as attending grammar schools in 2007  -  up 22 per cent from 128,712 in 1997.

Grammar pupils make up 4.7 per cent of the school population compared to 4.2 per cent a decade ago.

Grammars take a bigger share of ethnic minority pupils than comprehensives or secondary moderns.

Most are Indian, with Bangladeshi, Pakistani and black pupils still under-represented, according to the report.

They also take a smaller proportion of pupils on free school meals due to low household income  -  2.2 per cent. A separate government document revealed that grammar pupils are less likely than average to report being victims of bullying.

Under legislation introduced in 1998, parents can ballot to get rid of existing grammar schools but cannot set up a new one.

Only one ballot has gone ahead, over the future of Ripon Grammar School in North Yorkshire. Parents voted two to one in March 2000 to keep selection.

A poll of parents showed last year that nearly two-thirds believe all children should have the chance to go a grammar school if they pass the exam  -  a figure scarcely changed since a similar survey in 1987.

After two decades of comprehensive education, twice as many parents backed nationwide grammar schools as opposed them, the survey found.

Last week, the Children's Secretary, Ed Balls, mounted a fresh assault, claiming selective schools were damaging to education and left secondary modern pupils feeling like failures.

He was accused of undermining grammars to please backbenchers frustrated at Labour's failure to kill off selection altogether.

But the issue has also proved divisive for the Tories. David Cameron was rocked by a backbench backlash last year when he abandoned his party's traditional support for grammar schools.

The Tory leader has since said his opposition to new grammars was aimed at parts of the country where they had already died out and did not rule out more selective schools to meet rising populations in some areas.

Schools 'getting more divided on class lines'

State schools have become more segregated along social lines under Labour, a Government study showed yesterday.

Children needing free meals because of low family income are more likely to be concentrated in the same schools than nine years ago, the Department for Children, Schools and Families report found.

It also concluded that middle-class children are more likely to travel more than two miles to school, in order to reach the best ones.

Nationally, only 47 per cent of children attend their nearest school, with middle-class pupils more likely to travel further.

The Composition of Schools in England report said: 'The segregation of free school meals pupils in primary and secondary schools increased for most local authorities between 1999 and 2007.'

Segregation at primary level increased in 121 local authorities over the period, while it became less in 17 and in ten it stayed the same. At secondary level, 90 local authorities became more segregated, 42 became less ghettoised and 16 stayed the same.

Grammar school campaigners criticised the study last night for suggesting segregation was linked to selective schools. A Grammar Schools Association spokesman said more grammar education 'would increase social mobility, which has fallen year on year since the 1960s' when the policy was scrapped.