Speaking at a Barnardo’s fringe event at the Labour party conference, Kevin Courtney said government should be investing in schools at the bottom of the league tables, rather than academies and free schools.
"We should be lowering class sizes selectively in schools that are in the most challenging circumstances," he said. "That’s the route that we should be exploring".
Courtney added that schools should operate "banding" – which means admitting equal proportions of pupils in different ability bands – to drive up fairness, but warned this system would have to be used across whole local authority areas, not just in individual schools.
Ofsted should also inspect on whether or not schools are admitting enough children from different backgrounds, Courtney said.
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