The worst result

This week, the GCSE results envelope landed on doormats across the country. The results ought, on any rational basis, to shame the nation. Never mind how well or badly pupils may have done individually, taken as a whole the results point to a chillingly predictable trend for anyone in a comprehensive school. A pupil can look at their postcode, and see where it ranks in the government’s Index of Multiple Deprivation. If they live in a relatively prosperous area, they can be expected to have done fairly well. If they live on a sink estate, the odds are that they will have done badly.

Parents have long known about this link, which is why so many go to such lengths to rent property in more affluent catchment areas a year before their child is enrolled in school. But the full extent of England’s horribly unfair system was demonstrated recently in a study by the Financial Times.