3. The writer Alan Bennett argued in a sermon at King’s College Chapel, Cambridge, in 2014: ‘Private education is not fair. Those who provide it know it. Those who pay for it know it. Those who have to sacrifice in order to purchase it know it. And those who receive it know it, or should. And if their education ends without it dawning on them, then that education has been wasted.’ Do you agree with him or not, and has your conclusion been influenced by your own educational experience? The UK’s private, fee-paying, independent or ‘public’ schools, as they are sometimes called, have existed for centuries and have survived and prospered despite occasional political attempts to abolish or reform them. Verkaik’s Posh Boys (2018) and Green and Kynaston’s Engines of Privilege (2019) turned critical attention once more to the private sector of education as each study considered it to be a ‘problem’ for British society.

About 7% of the UK’s school population attend these schools. In 2018–19, the fees for boarding schools were £40,668 for Eton and £40,050 for Harrow. The average day fees for prep schools (primary level) were £13,026, and considerably more for secondary schools and sixth forms, making them available only to wealthy families. One reason why parents are prepared to spend so much money is to increase the chances of their sons and daughters gaining entry to Oxford