Children from troubled backgrounds will win places at prestigious private schools as part of a government-backed scheme aimed at transforming their life chances.
About £200,000 of public money is being given to a charity that helps match vulnerable children and those in care with top independent schools.
Read MoreSarah Fletcher, the high mistress of St Paul's Girls' School in London and a member of the HMC, offers thoughts on better ways young people can be assessed than out-dated GCSEs.
Everything has changed over the past few months.
We have put students from across the world in the same classrooms, safeguarded new ways of working and shared resources and online platforms.
Most extraordinary of all, teachers have helped in the awarding of grades and we have cancelled all assessments from key stage 1 to key stage 5.
Imagining the unimaginable is something we should do more often! And what better place to start than with the curriculum?
Read MoreA coalition of private and state schools is expected to launch a campaign to end GCSEs, as growing numbers of schools look at alternatives to the exams following the summer algorithm debacle.
Eton, Bedales, St Paul’s girls’ school, Latymer upper school and several substantial academy chains have been joined by Margaret Thatcher’s education secretary, Kenneth Baker, who created GCSEs, to discuss proposals for replacing the exam system.
The group, Rethinking Assessments, is likely to launch a formal campaign in the next few weeks, forcing ministers into a battle for control of school qualifications.
Read MoreThis social divide is much deeper in Britain than it is in other countries. In America, though there are some swanky schools, regular prosperous families send their kids to the local state school. In France, Italy and Germany, private schools tend to be for the religious or the troubled. It is only in Britain that the professional classes willingly go without holidays to ensure that their children are educated apart from the great majority of their compatriots.
The divide is much more important than it used to be. The top private schools used largely to be patronised by the cream of society (thick and rich). But as the growth of the “knowledge economy” outpaced that of the manufacturing industry, and children’s educational achievements increasingly determined their futures, they became highly selective and highly academic.
Read MoreCapping the number of private school pupils going to university would lead to a brain drain in which bright students would go abroad to study, a leading head teacher has warned.
It could leave universities, which mostly select on academic ability, struggling to fill courses, the annual Headmasters’ and Headmistresses’ Conference (HMC) of 300 leading private schools was told.
Read MoreCould Labour really abolish private schools? That's the big question after the party's conference voted to "integrate" private schools into the state sector.
The plan would see the assets of private schools "redistributed".
Universities would have a quota imposed of admitting no more than 7% of their students from private schools, so their numbers were in keeping with their proportion in the overall school population.
And private schools would lose their charitable status and tax exemptions.
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