At the end of last week, a friend brought a Telegraph article to my attention in paper form, but I spent the weekend linking, and have only just encountered it in its linkable version. It's about the headmaster of Newton Prep, in Battersea, London, and it's called "How I'd scrap state schools":
Privately educating every child in the land wouldn't be as costly as you might think, says Richard Dell.Picture your local school. It is vibrant, happy, filled with excited teachers and motivated children. The resources are first-rate: computers abound, the library is overflowing with books, and the governors are thinking of buying new playing-fields.
So is this your local private school? Yes. And is this yet another school that is too expensive for ordinary people? No. This school charges no fees. It is entirely free, right down to all the books and trips.
Sound too good to be true? Well, it shouldn't. We could create the best independent education for all our children without charging any fees whatsoever. How this could be done is wonderfully simple.
Well, yes, it does sound too good to be true, but the piece conveys what is called infectious enthusiasm, and I intend to study it some more and I recommend that some of you people do also. I think I might even email this man. I wonder what he might say. Something like this?
So do not complain that governments are getting our education system wrong. They should not be running it anyway. Stop whingeing and start doing. We can revolutionise education in our country.
Stop whingeing. Sounds like he's been reading this.
Some of our greatest schools exist because individuals rather than governments invested in education. Four leading independents have just announced a return to their founders' ideals with regards to means-tested scholarships - providing, in other words, the best education for the neediest of pupils.
Despite myself, I am impressed. More research is needed.
