At my old high school, in the 1990s, there wasn’t a single blade of grass. Year 11 had a patch of dust that perhaps once hosted plant life. There may have been a few weeds peeking through brickwork. I remember mostly concrete, much of it damp.

Illustration by Dionne GainCredit:

They weren’t ideal conditions. There was no room for sport during breaks, and adults worried the cold concrete would give us piles. But that patch of dust was the scene of many lively debates about life and politics by curious, clever students. The miniature hall hosted rousing performances. And the teaching in classrooms with broken fans and chewing gum on the underside of desks was, for the most part, first-rate. A lot can be done with little when there’s passion, dedication and purpose.

Then again, perhaps I’d be more successful if I’d attended a school with freshly cut lawn. Perhaps my love of literature would be greater if our books had been stored in a library that looked like a Scottish castle. Our concert band won a national title, but might we have gone global if we’d practised in a hall designed by an acoustic engineer? Perhaps my Latin teacher, a huge influence on my life, would have been better at her job if she’d delivered some classes in Rome.

I’ve been privately told that at one school, half of the fee notices are sent directly to grandparents.

We’ll never know. I’m tortured, now, by thoughts of my lost potential. But there are plenty of people who do think these trappings make a significant difference to schooling, because they are willing to devote more than $50,000 to a single year of a lone child’s education to ensure access to them.

Six years ago, the Herald reported that fees at Sydney’s most expensive private schools were about to reach........

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