Grammar schools promote inequality, end of. In our school we didn't sit the 11 plus and only a select few in the whole year were allowed to try for a scholarship; the rest of us were condemned from that point onwards.

This idea that kids don't feel discriminated against is condescending and a lie. We were well aware that we were considered second class to the folk in the posh schools and pondered this difference. I've no doubt the kids who went to these schools were bright, but the rest of us never got a chance to prove whether we were or not.

By filtering off the brightest children to grammar schools you leave behind those children who would benefit from association with brighter children (as musicians we all know we play 'up' when a skilled player is in the session) and those children who might flower later in school and would otherwise be hampered by being in a school with less vigorous academic standards.

These issues, combined with the ever-rising cost of tuition fees for higher education mean folk are denied a chance to achieve their potential whilst being kids; it's all over for them before they're 11 years old.

Grammars will not stop this happening, only an integrated and progressive education system with resources distributed fairly and facilities for schools raised to a level befitting one of the countries that leads the world in so many disciplines and industries.

The toffs will still go to their elite schools and won't be sullied by association with the great unwashed, but at least the rest of us might stand a chance to get a good education to be able to compete with them and hold our own in the wider world.