I can't claim to know all the ins and outs of all the educational arguments on here. All I do know is that my dd was regarded throughout primary as top average. She didn't get into selective schools at 11. She scraped into the top sets. She got 6A* and 5A at GCSE last year. I did O'levels in 1976 at grammar school and the girls who achieved that were in single figures and breathtakingly clever.
I am very very proud of my daughter and accept that through diligence and a bit of late blossoming she has done incredibly well.
There are a few other things is there. I think she was better taught than I was at grammar school in the 1970's (although we paid after Year 8), there is far more emphasis across the board on the importance of exams nowadays and for her personally we wanted her to do the very best she could and facilitated it. She had the run of the house: languages in the study, science in the dining room, everything else in the kitchen.
But, at the end of the day and even with all of that I do not think she would have brought home 11 A+ GCSEs in 1976. And now for the interesting bit - I think my son would have but he was never ever described as top average - rather G&T across the board.
I do think the current system is deeply broken and needs sorting out. We also need a bit of honesty coming back into it. Two tiers have reappeared by stealth with BTECs and Foundation, etc., and ought really to be discounted from the figures. One size does not fit all and the sooner governments and teachers and parents understand that the better for all children.
Finally, there needs to be much more emphasis on vocational qualifications in the UK. Not everyone will be an academic or a professional but we all desperately need plumbers, electricians, nurses, childminders, mechanics, decorators, builders, hairdressers, chefs, cooks, etc. Valuing those jobs and careers starts, in my opinion, at school and at present I just don't see it. There is always a bit of a snooty "you'll end up working in a nail bar" jibe that comes from teachers as far as I have ever seen and this needs to be replaced with "if you train in that, and continue to be as good with people and organised as you are, you may end up with your own successful business - now I know you hate maths, but let's focus on the skills you will need to run that business".