With recent headlines suggesting that “across a range of sectors, the UK’s most powerful and influential people are still 5 times more likely to have attended private schools than the general population1,” Principal of Stephen Perse Foundation, Cambridgeshire, Richard Girvan, argues that instead of independent schools being seen as obstacles to social mobility, they should be recognised as a resource to be expanded to include the socially disadvantaged rather than shrunk to serve an even smaller group.
A recent Sutton Trust report2 has rehearsed familiar tropes about Britain’s independent schools, focusing on the “problem of privilege”; defined as disproportionate access to elite universities, the reproduction of advantage, and the unfairness of wealth. Such critiques have substance, but they are only part of the picture.
Crucially, they offer little value to lead to meaningful outcomes for children growing up in poverty.
What these accounts fail to acknowledge is the evidence that when the privileges of independent education are extended to those from disadvantaged backgrounds, the results are transformative…