Inequality: The elephant in the room

I recently participated in a professional development event in one of Edinburgh’s well-known private schools. The private school head spoke first. He was kind and courteous, proud of his school’s “inclusive” tradition of offering “foundation” places to the children of “fatherless bairns” (suitably amended for the modern age to any children one of whose parents was dead) as well as other bursaries.

He valued the school’s capacity to retain an “independent” approach to national curricular guidelines, “unlike schools in the state sector”. The HMIs had been happy with its variations on the national curriculum. He valued the continuation of three separate science departments and the teaching of five languages (some language classes were opened to students from local “state” schools) all of which underpinned its commitment to a “liberal education”.