Grammar schools transformed British society after the Second World War. They educated cultural figures from Alan Bennett and Joan Bakewell to Paul McCartney and Mick Jagger. By the middle of the 1960s, the leaders of both the Labour and Conservative parties – Harold Wilson and Ted Heath – were grammar school boys. Margaret Thatcher went to a grammar school.
The 1944 Education Act introduced free secondary education for all children in England and Wales, reshaping state-funded schooling into a tripartite system of grammar, secondary modern and technical schools; the selective eleven-plus exam determined eligibility for grammar school. For the first time, an elite education was now available to many children from deprived or average backgrounds.
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This article appears in the 07 Dec 2022 issue of the New Statesman, Christmas Special