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Somewhere in Britain, right now, there is almost certainly a primary school child being quietly coached through practice papers. Verbal reasoning. Non-verbal reasoning. The shapes, the sequences, the odd-one-out. Their parents know the stakes. In a handful of counties that never abolished it, the eleven-plus still sorts eleven-year-olds into grammar…

There's a version of education history that everyone knows. Philanthropists with big hearts and bigger fortunes built schools. Victorian reformers gave passionate speeches. The state eventually stepped in. It's a tidy story, and like most tidy stories, it leaves out the people who were actually doing the maths. The people…