Reducing class sizes from 32 to 30 makes no difference at all

Matthew Taylor

Speaking in Brighton at a conference for independent school head teachers, Mr Taylor also warned of a crisis in London, with many middle class families opting out of the state sector into the private sector.

Mr Taylor, who is now head of the centre-left think tank, the Institute of Public Policy Research, said: "I think the government made a mistake in 1997 and that was the class size pledge."

"Reducing class sizes from 32 to 30 makes no difference at all," said Mr Taylor.

"Nonetheless, I think the money should have gone to the schools with the worst problems and should have massively reduced class sizes to those of the independent sector.

"We know from US research that it would have made a difference."

Private schools

Mr Taylor went on to suggest there was an education crisis in London.

In some parts of the capital, just five out of every hundred state school pupils came from middle-class families, he said.

"The more the independent sector expands, the more damage is done to the state sector.

"We are talking about a real crisis about the capacity of the state sector to succeed when it is increasingly providing for a group which excludes the self-confident and the educationally more able."