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Why we need a new school
Frank Dobson argues that parents simply
want good schools close to home
THE government’s Education Bill will fragment our education
system. Schools run by unelected business sponsors will compete
with one another. Locally elected education authorities will
have the duty to try to look after the interests of all the
children in their area but they won’t have the powers to
do anything about it. Schools will have no incentive to recruit
children who may be hard to teach. Quite the reverse. Instead
of concentrating resources on children most in need, the new
education market, like any market, will provide the best deal
for the best-off and best-informed.
This policy, which has such strong Tory support, is based
on the belief that every parent wants to shop around for schools
for their children. I don’t think that is true for the
majority. The first choice for most of us is for the nearest
school to be good enough for our children and to get them into
that school. Recent developments in Camden back up this view.
Camden’s primary and secondary schools are a great success.
They are so successful that parents in Islington who want their
children to get into Camden secondary schools went so far as
to threaten court action if our council went ahead with making
Camden secondary schools neighbourhood schools by linking them
with Camden primaries.
The national schools adjudicator who decides these things listened
to Islington parents, ignored the interests of Camden parents
and forced Camden to drop the proposal.
Yet, Camden’s Labour council invests nine per cent more
in Camden’s education service than the government’s
minimum target while Islington’s Liberal Democrat Council
actually spends six per cent less than the Government’s
target. But this didn’t count with the adjudicator. He
thinks it is okay for Islington parents to benefit from Camden’s
council tax that helps fund the higher investment in Camden’s
schools while paying less themselves.
This wouldn’t be so bad if there were a surplus of school
places in Camden so all Camden children could benefit. But there
isn’t. As a result, many Camden children can’t get
into the Camden school of their choice. Some can’t get
into Camden secondary schools at all. Nowhere is this more true
than for children from Holborn, Covent Garden, Bloomsbury and
King’s Cross who tend to miss out everywhere as priority
is given to children living closest to the existing secondary
schools. So children who have gone to their neighbourhood primary
school together get split up and are often forced to travel
miles in different directions to get to a secondary school with
a spare place. Some families move out altogether because there
isn’t a local neighbourhood secondary school. Other children
go to primary schools in Westminster, partly in the hope it
will improve their chances of getting a place in a Westminster
secondary school because they know they won’t get into
a Camden school. None of this movement promotes cohesion in
local communities – quite the reverse. No help on this
from the Education Bill.
That is why parents have formed the Holborn and St Pancras Secondary
School Campaign to get a new school in the neighbourhood. And
that is why I support their campaign.
There is no doubt that there are more children in the area.
Ten years ago, the council reopened Christopher Hatton Primary
School to cope with the increase in primary school pupils in
the area. The children in primary schools nearby, whether from
Camden or from other boroughs – mainly Islington –
together with the children forced to look for places in Westminster,
could fill a new neighbourhood secondary school in the south
of Camden. Possible sites include post office land at Mount
Pleasant or the Eastman Dental Hospital site in Gray’s
Inn Road if that service is relocated by the NHS. The purpose
of this new school would be to provide a better deal for children
denied places at present.
But, as every child’s education is important, we would
have to make sure that pupils going to other schools, such as
South Camden Community School and Maria Fidelis, don’t
lose out.
We don’t want a new school to be a cuckoo in the nest –
gobbling up pupils and teachers. Instead, all the schools could
work together, back up one another and perhaps get University
College and other higher education institutions to help –
but without them making a takeover.
However, one thing would have to be cleared up right from the
start – the new neighbourhood school would have to be able
to guarantee that Camden children could go there. If Camden
tax payers pay for it, Camden councillors provide it and Camden
voters vote for it, Camden children should be able to go to
it. The Adjudicator should guarantee that a new school would
be able to give first priority to Camden children. Fair’s
fair. But the Education Bill would make matters worse.
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