MARK Peel attended Harrow and taught at Fettes for 25 years. The cover of his modern history of the UK independent school system commits him to explaining “the vastly superior level of education” offered by the schools he spent his life in and others like them.
The cover also reveals that his efforts have attracted plaudits. The book is “timely and important”, “well-described” and “definitive” according to journalist Magnus Linklater (Eton alumnus), political biographer DR Thorpe (Fettes) and Sir Eric Anderson (former headmaster and provost of Eton).
There is clearly a lot of support from within the choir for Peel’s belief that the election of old Etonian David Cameron and his “cabinet of millionaires” in 2010 is attributable to the fact that “the concept of meritocracy didn’t simply disappear (with the demise of grammar schools) – it found a new home in the resurgent independent sector”.
And if that’s not enough to scunner the vast majority who do not attend private schools (95 per cent in Scotland), there’s more. “The growing political commitment to reforming the state sector,” Peel adds provocatively, “is based largely on the independent model, a sector in which hope, encouragement, opportunity and respect have taken on a new meaning, enabling many to attain heights never previously contemplated.”
Peel is silent on the contrary position: that private school control of the political levers of state and reshaping society according to the sector’s view of itself might create more problems than it solves. One searches in vain for references to the bedroom tax, or the growth of food banks, or, indeed, any recognition that old Etonian political hegemony and growing inequality might be related.
Peel traces the current “success” of the private school sector to changes that were implemented when it felt threatened by
Labour politicians and before it landed in the safe hands of Tony Blair, a former Fettes student, if a recalcitrant one. The book’s title derives from Michael Young’s The Rise of Meritocracy, written in the 1950s, which foresaw grammar-school elites running the country.
Peel, however, confuses merit with advantage. Some of the “improvements” he identifies – new management structures, professionalising teaching, accepting girls – were already state sector concerns and obligations; others such as the building of swanky new arts and sports facilities partially funded by international student fees were only available to the private sector.
Peel generally agrees with the various changes in private schools, but he’s also a nostalgic. He is fond of listing private school sports heroes while lamenting a decline in sportsmanship and waxes lyrical about the eccentric teachers of old despite the “drunks, disappointed academics, non-practising pederasts and practising cradle-snatchers” that journalist Harry Mount identified among his former teachers at Westminster School.
His chapter on headmasters (“Primus inter pares”) recalls the “wretched hagiography” charge previously levelled against him for his biography of Eton headmaster Anthony Chevenix-Trench. And he’s a fan of chapel which provides “a clear sense of responsibility and good living”.
One of Peel’s common room stories worth repeating concerns the aforementioned Eric Anderson who wrote Business, Industry, Commerce on a board at Eton and a student called Boris Johnson responded with: “These three words suggest to me that the headmaster dined in London last night.”
Peel sees only boy banter and precociousness in the exchange where others might detect arrogance, entitlement and a London-centricity which is extremely unattractive, and unhelpful, to those outside the city. In fact, Peel’s complete immersion in the private system and its ways routinely forces the reader to seek alternative interpretations or read silences.
There’s no sustained expert defence of the state system, just crude political representations of it. His chapter on examinations is completely concerned with A-levels, perhaps because Fettes follows the English curriculum. And despite the fact that Peel taught in Edinburgh for 25 years, Scotland barely registers here.
If Peel detects a threat to private schools from the state educated ministers of the Scottish Government and their numerous declarations on fairness and equality, he doesn’t say so.
The system has seen off politicians who talked one way and acted another in the past, including left-wing Labour MP Dianne Abbott who described her decision to send her son to private school as “indefensible”.
Perhaps this time it will be different, at least north of the Border. Charitable status and its risible associate “public interest” would be an interesting place to start.
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