Classroom warfare broke out yesterday after a private school headmaster slammed critics of the posh institutions — and claimed state schools are more elitist.

Alun Jones launched his attack on “1970s class war” attitudes towards fee-paying schools as he took over presidency of the Girls’ Schools Association.

The St Gabriels CoE principal called claims that the sector is elitist “stereotypical” and “out of date.”

Mr Jones, whose school charges parents up to £14,880 a year and is sited at Grade I listed site Sandleford Priory, said: “It’s going back to the old 1970s class war.

“It’s so outdated, the reference to the independent sector as that type of elite and privilege.”

And he claimed that some state schools in exclusive post codes “can end up being more exclusive than many independent schools.”

But Mr Jones was himself accused of “waging class war” yesterday by the Campaign for State Education (Case).

Case spokesman Michael Pyke said: “Whenever anyone argues for greater fairness in education, defenders of privilege start shouting about class war.

“His comments are unlikely to dispel the common perception that the chief function of private schooling is to perpetuate social and economic privilege.”

The campaigner, who has experience of working in an independent girls’ school, also challenged Mr Jones’s claims about elitism in state schools.

Mr Jones had argued that elitism was more likely to be fuelled by parents moving to expensive houses near good state schools, arguing that “80 per cent of the social apartheid one sees in schools is actually because of geography.”

Mr Pyke retorted that although a small number of state schools could be considered more elitist, “claims of this kind are too vague to be taken seriously.

He asked: “Why would parents pay such enormous fees if they did not think that they were buying advantages for their children?”

The GSA said it spends £63 million on bursaries for poorer pupils, half of whom have their fees paid for them.