Public schools and
A-level results: a thread. Can we please stop demonising all public schools and public school students? Half of what’s circulating on Twitter is of, shall we say, questionable accuracy. And remember it wasn’t them who changed the grades

Also, despite the less than helpful contributions from idiots like James Bethell, not everyone who went to public school came from a position of privilege. I went to a public school - not Eton or Harrow but a minor one where non-white kids accounted for, I reckon, 30% of students

I’m not from a well-off family. My dad was a barrister turned accounts clerk. Mum worked nights as a nurse to earn more money. They saved like hell. Even so, I couldn’t have gone to public school without an academic scholarship - I earned one of 2 out of 400+ applicants

I worked my arse off for 7 years - 12 As at O level (in the days before A*s), AAAB at A-level and earned a place at Oxford, where I failed miserably and barely escaped with a degree at all. It took me 18 months and 30-40 interviews to finally get an entry-level graduate job

I worked hard. I did a part-time MBA (back when everyone was doing them) on top of my job, and was the top student in my cohort. I got better jobs. I was made redundant. I’ve climbed and I’ve fallen several times in my life. I’ve earned my successes (and deserved my failures)

I certainly don’t feel like I was born with any privilege, and any I have now that I will pass on to my kids from being a moderately successful professional I’ve bloody well earned

So when the “public schools are full of tossers born with a silver spoon in their mouth” brigade attach public schools, yeah, I’ll defend them

Yes, there are rich, privileged kids at public schools who are oblivious to the in-built privileges of their birth. But we’re not all like that. Not even close. So don’t you even dare make those assumptions about me, just because I went to a public school *rant ends*

@threadreaderapp unroll, please