I had a mother who fought like mad from a pretty working class background to become a doctor. She succeeded thanks to getting three bursaries and passing her school exams in getting into medical school. No grants in the early 50s.
So she wanted to buy me and my bruv a "better" education.
What she didn't realise was that money didn't buy you better teaching, in fact after prep school, which WAS good my public school was utter sh!te.
I had to teach myself maths A level, the teachers were so awful, One of the chemistry teachers was a JP and spent our practical lessons on the bench, so we didn't even see him, my physics teacher never finished a single part of the syllabus properly, he was so rubbish he put problems on the board and then got them wrong and none of my teachers EVER set a homework or anything that they had to mark. It's a miracle I left with two A levels.
So I fecked about doing different jobs for 4 years before enrolling myself in evening class which led to me getting another A level and then into uni.
If the woman had let me go to grammar school, for which I passed the exam, or the direct grant school my mates went to, my education would have been well different, proper teachers, etc.
So now you know!
It left me with a posh accent and lots of "accomplishments" but not really the basics!