How can the attainment gap between the wealthiest and the poorest children be narrowed? Darren McGarvey heads back to the classroom to find out.

Starting with education fit for a king, Darren travels to the north of Scotland to visit Gordonstoun, the school that educated King Charles and his father, Prince Philip. Given unique access to the teachers and pupils, Darren embeds in the school to find out how private education gives its pupils the advantage.

Darren then travels across the country to the state schools charged with educating the rest of the UK’s children, a generation of kids unalterably changed by lockdown and growing up amidst a cost-of-living crisis.

Travelling to Finland, Darren encounters a school system where equity takes priority above all else and asks whether the UK can ever close its attainment gap when society remains so unequal.

Returning home, Darren meets the innovators determined to give every child in Britain an equal start. He meets the early years group tackling inequality in the first two years of life, before heading to a Glasgow primary school where play takes priority, and a punk school in Doncaster where children are taught that kindness and compassion are just as important as exam grades. Show less