Their schools are mercilessly arranged in league tables of triumph and obloquy. You're 18 and either on your way up or on your way down already. Selection, selection, selection. Nobody, though, questions the harsh, sweating turmoil of the system. Pressure is the name of this game.
Headmasters sail an infinite ocean of targets and standards.
Yet here's an extraordinary thing. The same government that sits atop this melee of competition sings an entirely different song about selection seven years earlier. No selection at 11. The Blunkett anthem. This next school year will begin to make that leftover election pledge flesh.