Upon Examination

There are far more private schools in London than in the North East, plus many institutions that a casual observer would assume to be private schools? Who knew? Of course, the exclusive London day school sector does have to exist, in order to staff the Labour Party. 

There is no point complaining that private schools "took advantage" of teacher assessment by giving "too many" pupils top marks last year. All schools could have done that. Only those schools were entitled enough to do it, but that is not their problem. In any case, they are often still using the largely coursework-based International GCSE, which has been banned in the state-funded sector because it is too easy. Always view their stellar results in that light.

Assess everyone both by coursework and by final exam, and give each of them their lower mark. But allow unlimited resits. As long as you knew the stuff when you passed, or else you would not have passed, then where is the problem? You can sit the driving test as many times as you pleased, and that puts you in a position to kill people.