Pupils chosen by house price

The Government is today accused of letting better- off parents buy their way into the top state schools.

Headteachers warned that middle-class families scrambling to purchase houses near good secondary schools are pricing poorer families out.

The "selection by house price" is particularly prevalent in London where a location in the catchment area of a highly-rated school adds tens of thousands of pounds to the cost of a house.

And Education Secretary Ruth Kelly is making the situation worse by introducing specialist schools which receive more money than comprehensives, it is claimed.

The warning comes from Tim Andrew, president of the Secondary Heads Association (SHA), at its annual conference in Brighton today.

He said the Government's policies are creating "have and have-not" schools.

"In some parts of the country we have moved from selection by ability, insofar as IQ represents selection by ability, to selection by house price," he said.

Mr Andrew said Ms Kelly "should have done something to reverse the trend" but has made it worse by giving specialist schools more money than the ordinary comprehensives are getting. Specialist secondaries get extra money to develop expertise in a subject such as maths and in the process they gain a "favoured place in the hierarchy".

Mr Andrew admitted that heads have colluded with ministers.

He said: "We have been only too pleased to declare how over-subscribed our schools are, and over-subscription implies exclusivity."

Mr Andrew, the head of Chesham High School in Buckinghamshire, cited research by the London School of Economic which showed that while British people have become more educated in recent decades, the improvement is largely confined to middle class families.

He said: "Instead of moving away from a Victorian system that reinforced hierarchy, we have been moving back towards it."

Mr Andrew said some blame rested with the previous Conservative government, which set schools in competition against each other. He also criticised Ms Kelly for not replacing A-levels with diplomas.