Wealthy parents should be taxed to make allocation of grammar places fairer

Research has shown that children who have been tutored for the 11-plus are more likely to win a grammar school place.

As a result, it has been suggested that wealthy families who use private tutors for this purpose should be taxed in order to help poorer children have access to the same help.

The paper by academics at the UCL Institute of Education, which looked at the backgrounds of more than 1,800 children in areas of England and Northern Ireland that have grammar schools, argues that a levy should be implemented to level the playing field in access to selective schools.

It found that in England, poorer children – those from families in the bottom quarter of household incomes – had less than a 10 per cent chance of attending a grammar school, compared with a 40 per cent chance among those from families in the top quarter of household incomes.

Just under three-quarters of those children in England who were tutored were given a grammar school place, compared with 14 per cent of those that were not tutored.