White British pupils have become a minority in England’s selective grammar schools, making up just 44% of pupils in 2026 compared to 66% in 2016, with one Headmaster describing the demographic change as “spectacular”. Thomas Casemore looks at what’s behind the shift in the Spectator.
This story, based on data from the DfE, has been reported on in various forms since June this year, but has now been picked up again by the press, and reposted by various people online, like Restore leader Rupert Lowe.
What though is going on? Why has the proportion of white British students dropped so much? Having experienced grammar-schools both as a pupil and as a teacher, I feel I am well positioned to talk about this subject.
My secondary education was at Lawrence Sheriff in Rugby, a free state grammar for boys. When I left in 2016, the school was 74% white British, today that figure is around 34%.
The same is true for Reading School, where I taught from 2020-23. Data on school applications show the proportion of white British children falling from 49% to 7% in 2024, before recovering slightly to 15% this year.
The Headmaster, Dr Chris Evans, described the demographic change as “spectacular” in a Daily Mail article, and Reading School has been exploring ways to funnel a more diverse range of children towards applying to the school, particularly focusing on areas of socio-economic depravation. This, notably, has included workshops and outreach in primary schools so that children from all backgrounds see that they can apply to the academically rigorous school.
More significantly, a new entrance exam, trailed during my time there, has yielded positive results in promoting a more diverse uptake.
When I sat the 11+ in Year Six, I had little ‘tutoring’ beyond some free sessions with a family friend and the 11+ preparation workbooks sold by WH Smiths. Once at grammar school, however, it quickly became apparent who had been heavily tutored and who had got there on natural ability. Reading School appears to have observed the same problem. Namely, the extent to which intensive preparation can influence performance in an entrance examination.
Many families are putting considerable time and money into tutoring their children. The pressure placed on some of these children is intense, and only continues through GCSEs, A-Levels and university applications. And that is where I think the story becomes more interesting.
Grammar-school figures have largely been discussed through the language of immigration and replacement. But whilst population change will inevitably affect the ethnic makeup of schools, I do not think immigration is the primary explanation here.
I, and others working in the education sector, have sometimes acknowledged, quietly and cautiously, that some cultures appear to have a different attitude towards education than some white British families.
This is certainly not true of every non-British culture, nor are all white British families academically apathetic. But there was often a noticeable difference in the importance attached to academic success and the willingness to invest time, money and effort into achieving it – something many notable Asian comedians, for example, have often themselves jokingly pointed out.
Sometimes that pressure goes too far – something I saw this first-hand at Sheriff in a constantly tired and stressed friend of Indian heritage – but it is often motivated by the understandable desire to give one’s child the best possible chance in life.
The irony is that this creates a rather strange situation for the grammar-school system. Grammar schools were, in large part, founded as a means of social mobility. A child of ability, regardless of their family’s wealth or social position, could pass an examination, receive an excellent education, go to university, and thereby change the course of their life. …
For generations, grammar schools helped working-class children enter universities and professions which otherwise would have been difficult to access.
The uncomfortable question then, is why white working-class families of today are increasingly less represented in that system? Recent data show that white children, particularly working-class boys, are performing at significantly lower rates than we might expect. …
There are undoubtedly many reasons for this. Socioeconomic circumstances, family structure, geography, school quality, changes in the labour market, the decline of traditional industries, and attitudes towards academic education will all play some part. The steady decline of support for the grammar-school model as elitist, and the overt value placed on equality of opportunity, also play a role.
But I wonder whether there is another less obvious factor: the welfare state. Could a substantial safety net affect how a society thinks about education?
Worth reading in full.
Surely immigration must be the “primary explanation” – seems odd to question that, particularly as many recent immigrants have brought their families with them – though the other factors he mentions will naturally compound the impact of fast demographic change.
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I accept that some ethnic minorities push their children educationally far more than some white families.
However, surely catchment areas come into the equation when considering applications for the relatively rare state grammar schools which still survive.
If large numbers of ethnic minorities move into an area which is served by a state grammar school, and a consequence is white flight which let’s face it is what usually happens, then it is not surprising that the proportion of non-white pupils will increase.
Over the last 30 years (basically since Blair, but turbo-charged under the CONs) the Establishment has imported roughly 12 million people. The idea that bringing in that number of people would NOT change everything about the UK is ridiculous.
The intention – as we were told by Blair’s adviser – WAS to change the face of the UK forever.
Something else the children of foreign nationals get without the input of the generations before. However, if we are an economic zone then the only way to do this is to mass IQ test kids and put through the top 10 per cent. Maybe you could even open up new ones if the kids of immigrants are so bright.
Being ‘bright’ isn’t all the education system cracks it up to be. Some groups are more disciplined, harder working, wiser, better at teamwork, more logical, and other such useful characteristics
I live in Melbourne Australia and there’s no doubt the increasing number of Indian and Chinese migrants has impacted on school enrolments and academic results. I did my final years at Melbourne High, a selective government school, and back then over 90% of students were white. The current enrolment is over 95% Chinese and Indian and part of the reason is cultural, their families respect teachers and value competition and meritocracy.
All part of the plan.
We are being replaced.
The question, what are we going to do about it?
50% of the White population are Libtards – greentards, marxists, socialists, labourites etc.
15% don’t care.
35% of Whites understand the great replacement plan and want to stop it.
35% is more than enough to effect a revolution and overturn the insanity.
Be active, be courageous in the public square.
Fight.
When my (white) daughter was coming up to 11 we asked for her to sit the 11-plus. The Education Authority (Tory run) was reluctant and told us she had to get remarkable results otherwise they would not pay the travel to Chelmsford.
On the exam day the papers had been lost. My wife drove across the county to collect them. Naturally, no one knows how they had been lost.