David Kynaston

Was the closure of the grammar schools really such a tragedy?

Peter Hitchens is in no doubt that it was. But a dominant, self-perpetuating meritocratic elite, all head and no heart, might also have presented problems

Anthony Crosland, the Labour politician responsible for the controversial Circular 10/65. [Getty Images] 
issue 21 January 2023

In 1959, the public (i.e. private) schools were responsible for 55 per cent of the Oxbridge intake. By 1967 they were down to 38 per cent, with the majority of places going instead to the grammar schools. Four years later Anthony Sampson welcomed how ‘the trickle of grammar school boys to Oxbridge has turned into a flood’, adding that ‘both in intelligence and ambition they compete strongly with the public school boys’.

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