How private schools ensure a life of privilege for their pupils

His father was a policeman who could never have afforded the fees. But for a young David Lyscom, winning a scholarship to a private school was the key that unlocked the door to his future success

On leaving Latymer school in London, he joined the Foreign Office, rose to become an ambassador and put his own children through Marlborough public school - and now champions the system as the new head of the Independent Schools Council (ISC).

"If I hadn't had it, I would not be where I am today," he says. "It opened doors that I don't think would have been opened otherwise."

For the 57% of British parents who told an ISC poll last year they would pay to send their children private if they could afford it, the logic seems clear. Privately educated children are four times more likely than state pupils to get straight As at A-level, and more than three times as likely to go to university. Just under half of the pupils accepted at Oxford and Cambridge universities come from the 7% of the population educated at private school.

From there it is a short step to the heart of the establishment. Nearly three quarters of judges, about a third of FTSE 100 chief executives, half of all senior journalists and a third of MPs - including the chancellor, Alistair Darling; the education secretary, Ed Balls; and Labour's deputy leader, Harriet Harman - were privately schooled.

Even the recession does not appear to have dented the popularity of private schools. Lyscom says pupil numbers were up in April's census, thanks to a bounceback in the City and a surprisingly large number of public sector parents - some, ironically, in education - who have been untouched by the slump.

So what is it that private schools do for their pupils that state schools cannot? Do they merely cream off easy pupils who would prosper anywhere, or is there something special in their ethos - and if so, could the state sector copy it?

It is a debate that not only divides politicians but pits parent against parent. Last week's ruling by the Charity Commission that two of the five private schools it had reviewed did not justify their charitable status triggered a furious debate on the parenting website Mumsnet, with claims of class hatred on one side and snobbery on the other.

The commission's favoured solution - more bursaries for poor children to attend private school - is derided by both sides. "If we took all the brightest kids from the state sector, you would have an uproar saying we were destroying the social mix in state schools," says Lyscom.

Michael Pryke of the Campaign for State Education argues, meanwhile, that bursaries are mere tokenism and that the damage private schools do to society by stripping middle-class children out of the comprehensive system outweighs any benefits: "The idea that schools like Eton can be considered charitable because they open their doors to a handful of poor children is nonsense."

Such entrenched views help to explain why the government has largely fought shy of confronting educational privilege - at least until this week, when a landmark report on social mobility from a panel chaired by the former cabinet minister Alan Milburn will reopen the debate. Because, as the report will argue, it is no longer just about private schooling.

The barriers reserving plum jobs for the privileged are erected from the cradle and persist into middle age, and the evidence suggests they are growing stronger.

By the time this September's intake of five-year-olds arrives at the school gates, their futures are already being shaped. A bright baby from a poor background is liable to be overtaken by a less bright baby from a wealthy background by the age of 22 months, boosted by educated parents and a stimulating home environment, according to research first published by the then education secretary Estelle Morris. And that's just the start.

Almost 30% of children on free school meals did not get five good GCSEs last year: two thirds of children from lower socio-economic groups do not make it to A-levels. Children on free school meals represent just a staggering 0.5% of all pupils gaining three As at A-level, the magic circle eligible for places at top universities.

And it is not for lack of innate ability. The Sutton Trust, a charity that campaigns to improve educational opportunities for young people from non-privileged backgrounds, estimates that every year 60,000 pupils in the top 20% of their peer group academically do not make it to higher education. Bright pupils who are educated in poor neighbourhoods are more likely to be steered into NVQs, not academic exams, the trust's research suggests.

And whether or not, as the former deputy prime minister, John Prescott, recently put it, "there are still teachers around who don't encourage kids from working-class homes", expectations both at school and at home may still be too low.

The higher education minister, David Lammy, who told the Commons earlier this month that no state school in his Tottenham constituency had ever sent a child to Oxford, argues that teachers lacking experience of top universities themselves may be slower to identify suitable candidates for Oxbridge.

And even for students who beat these odds, further hurdles follow graduation. Unpaid internships are now an accepted route into many careers, favouring those with the family connections to secure them, and the means to survive without a salary, and in a tight job market the soft skills - self-confidence, teamwork, communication - instilled by private schools are critical.

Barry Sheerman, chair of the education select committee, makes a point of taking on working-class interns for his Commons office, but admits: "We have to teach them that they don't have to be apologetic about being in a big office: we have to get their shoulders back, get them answering the phone in an authoritative way. Yet you get these troops of old Harrovians [as Tory interns] walking around as if they owned the world."

Such factors, along with an increasing trend for graduate entry in professions such as journalism, which once allowed school-leavers to work their way up, mean social mobility in 9 out of 12 professions studied by the review is now actually moving backwards.

On current social trends, the next generation of lawyers will come from families 70% wealthier than average: those born in 1958 had families just 43% richer than average.

And that means it will be not only the poor squeezed out of the top jobs, but also increasingly children from middle-class backgrounds whose families once took their rise for granted.

When Conor Gearty and his wife failed to get their two young children into their local state primary, they joined the 1 in 5 London parents who pay for their children's education, but the family quickly found themselves becoming uncomfortable with their choice.

"We were unhappy with the whole milieu, although the school was performing perfectly fine," says Gearty, professor of human rights law at the LSE. "I didn't like the world in which we seemed to be being immersed... the assumptions in that culture - school runs and the endless driving of children around London to expensive parties - everything that comes with it."

The family switched their son and daughter to their preferred state school as soon as a place became available and have not looked back. They like the accountability of the state system, as well as the social mix and the opportunities to get involved: Gearty has been a governor at three schools.

He also thinks the children, now aged 13 and 16, have benefited: "I think what the kids learn from their experience in state schools is how to find their way through a diverse community."

But he admits he is not sure what he would have done had their preferred state school not found a place. "Would we have pulled them out of that school to send them to something we had less confidence in? I'm not sure that I would have had the confidence."

Which is why Milburn's report will argue that improving state education - particularly for the 600,000 children trapped in failing schools, many of them in inner cities - is critical to a healthier and more open society.

It will also seek to reassure Middle England voters turned off by clumsy class-war politics that opening up the professions will benefit their children, too.

Sunder Katwala of the Fabian Society, the centre-left think-tank, argues that voters may now be ready for such an argument.

"That chances aren't fair in our society is something most people agree with. But possibly, since Laura Spence, the government hasn't really taken that on," he argues. "This sometimes ends up in class-war silliness about top-hatted toffs, but if you explain that you are doing these things because you want class to matter less, then you start being able to explain what you are doing as a government."

Gordon Brown, who once described himself as a "child of the first great wave of postwar social mobility", has always wanted to create a second wave.

This week's report will argue that he has little time left to lose.

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