LIKE the Cavaliers in the Civil War, grammar schools are wrong but romantic.

A close look at Department for Education data should give all us warning. Compared to Kent (where the ability profile of pupils is almost identical to Oxfordshire’s), high-ability students score an average 382 points at GCSE, exactly the same as in the Oxfordshire comps.

But middle-ability students (the majority) score 300 points in Oxon compared to 282 in Kent, a quarter grade’s difference.

Children have nothing to gain from grammars, but quite a lot to lose.

Recent coverage of A-Level results shows there is no difficulty in accessing the top universities for comprehensive students, far more state school students go to Oxbridge now than in the sixties, 60 per cent as opposed to 30 per cent.

Statistics are admittedly very dull.

But like the Roundheads, they are right.

Helen Farrell,

Bowgrave Copse Abingdon