The biggest objection to the return of grammar schools is how ruthlessly selective the old 11-plus exams were. By their very nature, exams are ruthless and selective – that’s what they’re there for. And the main reason private schools do so much better than state schools is because they take ruthless selection to sadistic levels.
Between the ages of five and 26 when, please God, I did my last ever exam (to qualify as a barrister), I sat around 200 exams. Each one was a brutal sifting exercise, dividing children into better sets in better schools, and then into getting better degrees at better universities.
