I went to university, and as a result I write things like this for a living. Many of those kids from my school didn’t. It wasn’t because they weren’t bright enough: some of them were sharper and smarter than many of the middle-class and privately educated people I met at university and after. Nor was it because our bog-standard comprehensive failed them: our exam results were, on the whole, pretty good, and included some truly impressive performances, especially in maths. Some of my contemporaries now earn squillions in the City, in part because of the mathematical abilities they developed at our ordinary school.