Poor children miss out on grammar education

EducationGuardian.co.uk | Special Reports | Poor children miss out on grammar education This is hugely important. There's a personal stake: I was that kid that came from a poor family but had academic potential and looking back I feel failed by the system and the fact that I lost, I reckon, about two years of schooling compared to kids in grammar and private schools just through being on the wrong track and being on it because of my family background. How many other kids have we been failing? Or: are we failing? Even into the university system? And beyond? And what's worse, I find traces of it in the churches.

I did have a bit of a discussion with someone over this issue in relation to women's ministry as priests too, especially as I see some women being fast-tracked where it seems to me that their background may be the biggest factor rather than their merit [tokenism using the reflex selection methods of the traditionally priviledged: 'are they like us?']. -Some men in ministry also know what the exclusion is like because they/we come from the 'wrong' side of the class divide.