Disturbing news about social mobility in the UK. To he point that something really must be done:

Well-off parents create a “glass floor” for their less academically inclined children ensuring they “hoard the best opportunities” over poorer peers, a study has suggested.

Children from wealthier families but with less academic ability are 35% more likely to become high earners than their more gifted counterparts from poor families, according to findings from the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission.

Clearly something just must be done. The report itself is here and commenting upon it we get:

Study author Dr Abigail McKnight from the London School of Economics said: “The fact that middle class families are successful in hoarding the best opportunities in the education system and in the labour market is a real barrier to the upward social mobility of less advantaged children.”

“Children from less advantaged families who show high potential at age five are struggling to convert this potential into later labour market success.”

“Schools could do much more to help children from less advantaged families build on high early potential.”

Difficult to know what to do really. Perhaps some system could be devised whereby we identified those bright but poor children and then gave them the academic, specialist, education which would enable them to make the best use of those talents? Would it be too, too, odd to suggest that they might even be sent to separate schools?