The growing educational apartheid

This week would normally be the time when state and private schools go their separate ways, when privately educated children go off on their holidays while the state school lot carry on for another couple of weeks of term. Except this time, the divergence happened in March, when lockdown started and the educational apartheid began, between rich and poor – or at least, between those who can afford fees and the not so well off.

At that point, private school pupils went online for their education with school days running pretty well as normal; state school pupils ceased to have any education at all apart from homework set online, which might be marked, or might not, depending on whether the teachers felt like it. My son, who’s at a good school, has had precisely two online lessons since lockdown. My daughter’s had some maths lessons, about five or six. By the time they return to school, it’ll be getting on for six months since their last formal education.