Different class | 26 March 2011

 I’ve always found Britain’s education system ­bewildering. Our public schools are private; our church schools take the children of committed ­atheists; and ‘distance learning’ happens at home. My old school, Bradford Grammar School (BGS), is not a ‘grammar school’ in the way most ­people would imagine. It is a member of the Headmasters’ Conference and it charges fees.

That a school’s name tells you next to nothing about what it does reflects decades of bizarre and often contradictory political reform. Almost every piece of school legislation after Rab Butler’s 1944 Education Act, which created grammars, has meant trouble for my old school. At the time of its creation — 1548 — the school was intended to offer the best educational opportunities for children in the city. Butler’s reforms merely ensured that bright pupils could attend regardless of their families’ income by giving a direct grant to the school which would pay for the education of poorer pupils (on the condition that at least half the pupils would fit into this category).