"selective schooling" is a correct and usable term in written English.
It can be used to refer to a type of school where pupils are admitted based on certain criteria, such as their academic performance. For example, "The city is discussing plans to introduce a system of selective schooling to ensure that the most able students can access the best educational opportunities."
Any expansion of selective schooling – where pupils are selected at the age of 11 through examination – comes in the face of research that contradicts the idea of grammar schools as vehicles of social mobility, and have instead been colonised by the middle class.
It's thought Lord Willetts, the former universities minister who strongly opposes selective schooling, invented it in a 2005 speech about the dangers of mindless traditionalism.
Morgan said the expansion – which would have provision for 450 pupils – was genuine and did not reflect a change in government policy towards selective schooling.
Willetts, who previously dismissed the clamour for a return to selective schooling among some of his colleagues as "bring backery," told the Today programme earlier this week that the evidence clearly showed selective schooling was the wrong way to help disadvantaged children.
His own school was founded as a co-ed independent day school in 1981, after public pressure for selective schooling following the closure of Leicestershire's grammar schools.
May is thought to be preparing to announce an expansion of selective schooling as early as next week, to please Tory grassroots members and set out a clear dividing line with Labour.
The proposal seems to rest on two justifications: at present there is selection by house price; parents like selective schools.
And why these highly selective schools?
Asking selective schools to sponsor non-selective schools won't bridge divides; it will confirm them.
Some students chose more selective schools; some less selective ones.
For them, attending a more selective school increased earnings significantly.
