This will be seen as a symbolic reversing of the tide, after many decades in which grammar schools were seen as a receding emblem of the educational past, rather than an expanding destination for the future.
While this decision will be warmly welcomed by traditionalists in the Conservatives' ranks, it will be a double-edged sword for the government. Their education reforms, promoting academies and free schools, have made a prime virtue of raising standards for all, rather than focusing on the academically most able. That policy sits uneasily beside a rejuvenated 11-plus exam.
When David Cameron had the shadow education brief for the Conservatives, one of his clearest steps was to distance himself from the ideological trench warfare of the pro and anti-grammar campaigners.
Ministers won't want the return of grammars to drown out their education policy, so they will want to play down suggestions that this decision could open the floodgates to a wave of such satellite selective schools