It was all so depressingly predictable.
Tuesday’s A-level results showed that children who went to private schools smashed the exams compared to state school pupils.
But even I was stunned at just how successful, despite the impact of the pandemic, this cohort was.
Figures from the exam regulator Ofqual revealed that a staggering 70% of A-level pupils in independent schools achieved a grade A or above.
In the state sector, the figure was just 39%.
Kids in private schools aren’t brighter than state school children, but this year, more than any other, the dice was even more firmly loaded in their favour.
Covid-19 has caused unprecedented disruption to education. But friends I spoke to, whose children are privately educated, told me that with military-like precision, schools switched to online lessons almost immediately.
Private schools are businesses, they have to make a profit and, as any business owner knows, the way to make a profit is to keep customers happy.
I’m not trying to minimise the impact on these children but compared to state school children they had it good – access to their own computers, good wi-fi, and they didn’t need Marcus Rashford to campaign for them to get food at lunchtime.
But many of these pupils had no online lessons for months and there are sad stories of children having to wait to use their parents’ smartphone to do their work.
So the gap was always going to widen. Add in the fact that exams, meant to be a great leveller, were cancelled and replaced by teacher assessment, and this created the perfect storm that has led us to where we are today.
And no doubt we’ll see the same pattern today when the GCSE exam results are revealed.
Sir Kevan Collins, who resigned as the Government’s school catch-up tsar, has expressed real concern that “growing education inequality could be the legacy of Covid.”
The exam statistics are shameful and shocking because it will be harder for state pupils to get places on university courses and it could potentially harm their job prospects.
Education is vital for the future of young people. If I was growing up today I would have been considered a disadvantaged child and the only reason my life changed was because of education.
Everything possible must be done to ensure this disgraceful education gap doesn’t widen further.
