The row over the prospect of a new generation of grammar schools continued today as the Prime Minister Theresa May indicated she will lift the ban on new ones.

The prospect of what would be a significant and far-reaching shift in education policy continues to dominate the political agenda after details of the new Conservative policy were inadvertently leaked.

About 14,000 children are today sitting the Kent Test hoping to secure a place at one of the county’s 33 grammar schools.

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And tomorrow, work gets underway on the first grammar annex in Sevenoaks.

Education secretary Ms Greening told MPs today she recognised the debate over grammar schools was "emotive", saying government plans would be set out "in due course".

"There will be no return to the simplistic binary choice of the past where schools split children into winners and losers, successes and failures," she told the Commons.

The government’s proposals were broadly welcomed by Cllr Jenny Whittle, who chaired an all-party inquiry into improving access to grammars.

She said: “What I’d like to see is pupil premium money being targeted so that children from a poorer background have access to similar opportunities as their middle class peers."

Cllr Whittle said: “In Kent we are already seeing pupil premium have an impact on the number of poorer children attending grammar schools and closing the attainment gap between those children and their middle class counterparts.”

She said that there had to be a focus on addressing the fact that the educational gap opened up at 22 months, which she described as a shocking statistic.

But she said the government should not set quotas. Instead, primary schools should be doing more to identify and encourage poorer people to take the exam.

“The attainment gap has to start at a very early age. We know there are poorer brighter children who are not taking the test who are not taking the test or are but narrowly fail but are not being helped to go through the headteacher and parental appeals process.”

Tomorrow, building work will begin on the first new grammar school annex in west Kent. The satellite grammar in Sevenoaks is being sponsored by the Weald of Kent Girls Grammar and follows a long-running campaign to provide selective places in the town.

Kent County Council’s Conservative leader Paul Carter said it was a significant step.

“This will be a hugely significant day for selective education in the country. We are extremely proud to be the first local authority in the UK to have relentlessly pursued this ambition.This is not just a great day for education in Kent but the future of grammar school education across the country.”