The Bishop wrote:
This seems to be a game to some of you. This is real life. Children got their results on Thursday or Friday just gone, their pain, I can assure you from first hand experience, is raw and real.
My Lord, One suspects that few who got their results last week read the Forum, though there well might be a few embittered readers who still blame their lack of sucess in life on an exam they took years ago rather than what they did with the rest of their short time on the planet? I know many people who took this early 'set back' as an incentive to get their arse into gear rather than continue underachieving but it's a lot easier to blame outside influences I suppose.
Not having the delusion of 'life eternal' to keep me going (Friedrich Nietzsche having declared God dead years ago) I for one certainly treat life as a game if only to keep the great ennui temporarily at bay!
Having spent the latter part of my working life in education, retiring from full-time teaching as Head of Department in a non-Grammar Secondary School with over 1500 pupils, I have never thought that the presence of Grammar Schools means that non-attendees should somehow get a second class education, though I would certainly expect them to get a different education more suited to their abilities.
We are not all born equal and if, as a country and economy, we are going to keep our place with first class research from universities, it's important that we give specialist training to those who show ability just as we do with athletes if we wish to get Olympic medals.
Nietzsche also said 'The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently' which I have always tried to pass on to my pupils. Perhaps a break from the dreadful Guardian might do you a world of good?
You are even speaking like a Guardian scribbler! What the Hell is 'calling that out' when it's at home? Sounds like some dreadful slang thing to show you are 'down with the kids' or whatever. In the Queen's English we tend to 'call out' people like a plumber when we have a burst pipe.
The Guardian article you cite is lazy journalism with no attempt to look at why pupils taking 'free school meals' are unrepresented at Grammar Schools.
Putting it in basic terms bright people tend to breed with bright people and in spite of regression towards the mean tend to have bright kids. Bright people tend to have higher paid jobs and are also more likely to remain as a couple whilst bringing up kids. Ergo bright kids are less likely to come from poor households.
There's an article on it here
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/429209/assortative-mating-uptick-people-marry-others-same-level-education Yes, I know it's based on American data but the stats are much the same over here.