Can a school share out its success?

They have enviable results in the classroom and on the sports field. They command substantial fees and send large numbers of pupils to top universities. So why have leading private schools found it such heavy going transferring their success when sponsoring state schools?

It seemed the ideal solution to help break down the great barrier between state and private schooling, as well as to address the charge that private schools were not doing enough to justify their charitable status: a leading private school takes a struggling state school under its wing, lends it some expertise, allows it to use some of its facilities and even shares some of its teachers. Results surely cannot fail to be impressive.

That, certainly, seemed to be the outcome when the London Academy of Excellence, a Stratford-based sixth-form college which is sponsored by a host of private schools including Eton, Brighton and Highgate, recently announced that eight of its pupils had been offered places at Oxbridge.