Alice and David Chaplin and their children move to a gated private housing estate where status is all-important. Queen Bee Ffion, who addresses her daughter in French even in shops, sets the snobby standard and Alice is alarmed at the parents'competition to get their daughters into the fashionable Chelsea college rather than the despised local comprehensive school. Sarah McDonald even gets a job as school secretary to be close to the action. The fact remains that Alice's daughter Molly is no academic, scoring a measly 38 per cent in her dummy run entry exam for Chelsea. Alice panics, foreseeing a life of prostitution for her daughter and decides she will impersonate Molly and take the exam herself.