By rights, I should be one of those Tories who is passionately in favour of grammar schools. After all, I went to one myself. My attachment to them should be particularly strong because before arriving at William Ellis in Highgate I went to two bog-standard comprehensives and failed all my O–levels apart from English Literature, in which I got a C. The only other qualification I left with was a grade one CSE in Drama. William Ellis was the making of me. Had I not got in, I doubt I would have ended up at Oxford.
Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not a passionate opponent of grammar schools either. I wouldn’t want to deny to other children the opportunities I had and would like my own children to have — a form of hypocrisy that’s widespread among critics of selective education. But I’m not so naive as to think that bringing back grammars would boost social mobility.
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