The rules

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/oct/19/essential-etiquette-guide-modern-life

Version 0 of 1.

<strong>State schools and private schools</strong><br />

It is rarely a good idea to ask someone what school they went to. The question implies that it might be a school that you have heard of, which means that it should be the kind of school of which people have generally heard. Most people did not go to that kind of school.

The exception is in Downing Street, where nearly everyone went to the kind of school everyone has heard of but they don't need to ask each other which one because they were all there at the same time.

It isn't only Conservatives who went to posh schools. Some Labour MPs did too. The important difference is that Labour people are supposed to feel guilty about it. Lib Dems are no longer seriously expected to feel guilty about anything.

Politicians who want to avoid sending their children to private school can always pay for a place at a top state school by buying an expensive house in the right catchment area. Alternatively, they can pretend to be religious in order to get their children into a top church-run school. This is often easier for Tories because they are more likely to have expensive houses and be regular churchgoers already.

<strong>Academies and free schools</strong><br />

Academies are state schools that are meant to look like private schools, which is why they appealed so much to Tony Blair and why the left of the Labour party hates them. Labour invented academies but then went off them when they became Conservative policy. Now Labour has changed its mind again. The difference is that Labour only wants academies in areas where local authority schools are seen to be rubbish and the Conservatives want all local authority schools to be seen to be rubbish so they can turn them into academies.

Free schools are like academies that are set up by parents or local community organisations when they don't like their local school. It isn't clear yet what happens when parents and local communities don't like their local school but it is already a free school.

Businesses and other organisations are allowed to set up academies and free schools but are not allowed to make a profit from them until there is a majority Conservative government. To qualify for setting up a school, organisations must meet the following criteria:

<strong>1</strong> They must not be local authorities.

<strong>2</strong> If they hold extreme religious views. they must promise not to tell the children, or only tell them in RE lessons.

<strong>3</strong> They must sometimes teach things other than RE.

Useful words and phrases in education policy<br />

<strong>Ethos</strong> The distinctive set of values that an academy can declare in its mission statement. Being exclusively middle class doesn't officially count as an ethos.

<strong>Ofsted</strong> A shadowy organisation that controls house prices by praising or condemning local schools.

<strong>Toby Young</strong> Founder of the West London free school, believed by Conservatives to be a brilliant advocate for the whole concept; in fact, a double agent who uses his aggressively self-promoting style to put everyone else off the idea.

<strong>Latin</strong> The subject that free schools teach to prove they are a cut above local authority schools.

<strong>League tables</strong> Rejected by everyone as a crude misrepresentation of achievement that couldn't possibly capture the complexity of what happens in the classroom, until their local school comes top.

<strong>NUT/NASUWT</strong> Teaching unions involved in a cunning conspiracy to help lefty parents to explain strikes sympathetically to their children since Michael Gove will never allow that on the curriculum.

<strong>Grammar schools</strong> State schools that can exclude people for failing entrance exams the way private schools do.

<strong>Private tuition</strong> What middle-class parents buy to get their children past the entrance exam for grammar schools.

<strong>Boarding school</strong> A system for training Conservative prime ministers and fictional boy wizards.

THE RULES AN ETIQUETTE GUIDE TO EDUCATION

Our editors' picks for the day's top news and commentary delivered to your inbox each morning.