Push on and we’ll all get a good school

Eleanor Mills mentioned Sutton Trust research in her column for the Sunday Times.

Well, the sun is shining, and as we bask — finally — in some long-deserved warmth and brightness, there is another reason to celebrate too. Last week brought National Offer Day — that crucial mark on the calendar, hanging over many of us for months, when we finally found out where our offspring would be going to secondary school.

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That view is borne out by Sutton Trust research into social mobility which shows that while the professions are still overwhelmingly the preserve of the privately educated (the law, media and politics being some of the worst offenders), business leaders are more socially mobile.

It also comes down to what we want for our children. Personally, I want them to be the kind of people who can go both to a council house and a palace and not only know how to behave but also not feel intimidated. I certainly don’t want them to fall prey to the “silent epidemic”, as The Times put it recently, of anxiety and eating disorders. Being in more of a social melting pot, rather than a moneyed social pressure cooker, must be good for that.

Read the full article here.