Status Anxiety: A lesson in competition

For critics of state education, locked in combat with the teaching unions, it is easy to overlook the fact that some comprehensives do an outstanding job. One example in my neck of the woods is Cardinal Vaughan, a Roman Catholic boys’ school. Last year, 90 per cent of its pupils got five good GCSEs, making it the best performer in Kensington and Chelsea, and this year 13 of its pupils have been offered places at Oxford and Cambridge. And Vaughan is completely non-selective, beyond the requirement that its pupils have to be Catholics. It has a fair banding policy whereby a quarter of each year group are in the top ability band, half in the middle and a quarter in the bottom.

Of course, like every successful comprehensive, the Vaughan has its critics. Opponents of faith schools claim it only achieves these results because it admits an above-average number of middle-class children.