Different class | 26 March 2011

 I’ve always found Britain’s education system ­bewildering. Our public schools are private; our church schools take the children of committed ­atheists; and ‘distance learning’ happens at home. My old school, Bradford Grammar School (BGS), is not a ‘grammar school’ in the way most ­people would imagine. It is a member of the Headmasters’ Conference and it charges fees.

That a school’s name tells you next to nothing about what it does reflects decades of bizarre and often contradictory political reform. Almost every piece of school legislation after Rab Butler’s 1944 Education Act, which created grammars, has meant trouble for my old school. At the time of its creation — 1548 — the school was intended to offer the best educational opportunities for children in the city. Butler’s reforms merely ensured that bright pupils could attend regardless of their families’ income by giving a direct grant to the school which would pay for the education of poorer pupils (on the condition that at least half the pupils would fit into this category).

It was not to last. Old Labour saw to that. In 1975, after the school had churned out people like David Hockney and a clutch of left-wing politicians, the direct grant was abolished and the school was forced to choose either to become a comprehensive or go private. Along with Manchester and Leeds grammars, Bradford went private. The jostling has continued since then: when the Tories introduced the assisted places scheme, 40,000 pupils were once again state-subsidised every year. But as soon as Tony Blair took office, these places were again abolished.

The net effect of these Labour cuts has been to crush social mobility in the very areas of Britain where the young most need a leg up.

It is thanks only to a successful fight to maintain educational standards and make more places available for girls that Bradford has held on to its principles as an independent.