Cambridge University’s decision to scrap its targets for the share of state and private school pupils winning places is a significant move.  Parents at independent schools have been fighting a wave of perceived discrimination as increasing numbers of universities set ever more ambitious targets for selecting pupils educated away from fee-paying private schools.

While social mobility is an admirable goal, the move towards ‘contextual recruitment practices’, as promoted by the Sutton Trust, means that over time standards will eventually slip and progressive attitudes trump genuine educational outcomes. 

In many ways, Google had its own moment of social reckoning this week as its AI tool, Gemini, was widely reported to have ‘messed up’.  Rather than producing accurate information, its anti-bias setting was turned to maximum and the hugely inaccurate search results were widely interpreted by the financial markets as a significant problem for its share price.

While Cambridge and Google are polar opposites with regards to their business model, they do play a significant role in shaping public opinion. The former through subtle positioning and messaging, the latter with more obvious data production and retrieval techniques.

They both matter when it comes to parental decision making.  While fashionable political stances are always attractive, they can give parents mixed messages.  A move towards social engineering suggests ambition and hard work should be downplayed, equally, changes to a search engine’s algorithm undermine truth.

Regardless of the current zeitgeist, families succeed or fail on some very simple principles – work hard and you will be rewarded, have tolerance for others, and make good decisions when the time comes.  Everything else as they say, is just noise.

David Paton is Head of Radnor House.