THE so-called prizes-for-all ideology in education that opposes elitism is delivered a telling blow today by a report showing that primary school children of all abilities benefit from being separated by aptitude for individual lessons.

This "setting" of pupils - or streaming by subject rather than placing them in different ability groups for all lessons - is said, by an Ofsted survey of 900 schools, to have produced some spectacular results and a large majority achieving better ones than mixed-ability classes.

But what is most encouraging is that slow learners gain, too - no doubt because they no longer inhibited by their brighter classmates.

And more gifted children are not held back by the less able.

That is a far better form of equal opportunity than the anti-elitist outlook that offered mediocrity.

All schools should go for this approach.

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