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What school are you going to send your children to? It鈥檚 a question most parents spend endless hours agonising about. Many force their kids to have extra tuition to get the grades needed to get into schools that select pupils based on ability, then spend a small fortune on school fees.

That might all be a waste of time, according to a study of 5000 teenagers in England and Wales. 鈥淔or educational achievement, there appears to be little added benefit from attending selective schools,鈥� says Emily Smith-Woolley of King鈥檚 College London, who carried out the study.

On average, the teenagers attending selective schools 鈥� including both fee-paying private schools and state-funded grammar schools 鈥� did do better than the rest. They scored about a grade higher in the exams done at age 16 in the UK, called GCSEs.

These raw results suggest that about 7 per cent of the differences in exam results are due to the type of school. But when the team adjusted for the fact that selective schools pick more able pupils, and also that these pupils tend to come from families with higher socio-economic status 鈥� that can afford to pay school fees, for instance 鈥� the differences vanished.

In other words, the results imply that the pupils at selective schools would have done equally well at non-selective ones. 鈥淲e鈥檙e saying there鈥檚 no value added,鈥� says team member Robert Plomin, also at King鈥檚. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a self-fulfilling prophecy.鈥�

Thank your genes

But what does make a difference is genetics. A identified common genetic variants strongly linked to educational achievement. Each has a tiny effect alone but together they seem to have a significant impact on exam success.

So for this new work, Smith-Woolley鈥檚 team tested the teenagers鈥� DNA and, based on the 2016 study, scored them on how many variants they had that were linked to better educational achievement.

These scores can account for more than 8 per cent of the differences in exam results. 鈥淭hat is amazing,鈥� says Plomin. For comparison, he points out that sex differences can predict just 1 per cent of the variation, while differences in how schools are rated by inspectors explain just 2 per cent.

What鈥檚 more, as we identify more genetic variants that affect educational attainment, the predictive power of these genetic scores could greatly increase. Plomin claims when all the existing evidence is added up, it suggests that two-thirds of the differences in educational achievement are due to genetic differences, rather than the environment, though some argue that he is misinterpreting the findings.

The elephant in the classroom

So what are we to make of the latest study? That鈥檚 the hard question.

The obvious implication would seem to be that parents and states should not waste money sending pupils to selective schools. But both Smith-Woolley and Plomin shy away drawing any such conclusion. 鈥淭his study does not give us specific policy implications,鈥� Smith-Woolley said repeatedly at a press conference on Thursday. For one thing, she points out that parents choose schools for many reasons, not just academic achievement.

Other researchers say that in any case, the study is too small to prove the point. 鈥淎 much bigger and better designed study is needed to provide an answer to this question,鈥� says Gil McVean, a geneticist at the University of Oxford.

Despite all this, Plomin thinks we need to pay far more attention to the role of genetics in education. 鈥淲e ignore the elephant in the classroom at our peril,鈥� he says. He thinks that sooner or later we will start testing children to assess their genetic potential using scores like those in this study. It could even be done before they are born.

What we use such scores for depends on our values rather than on the science, he says. Some might argue for focusing spending more on those with the highest genetic potential, for instance, others for spending more on those with the lowest potential to reduce inequalities.

And while genetics may be important when it comes to educational achievement, it should not be confused with destiny. If you don鈥檛 teach a child to read, they will not do well in exams no matter how well they鈥檝e done in the genetic lottery. 鈥淚t鈥檚 not deterministic,鈥� says Smith-Woolley.