Toby Young is an interesting character and he’s certainly stirred up a fair bit of controversy over his proposal to set up his own school in Acton.
On one side of the argument is the seductive proposal that parent power should predominate and that if the local school doesn’t suit you then just set up another one.
On the other hand there do seem to me to be immense difficulties and severe consequences for the wider educational field – and especially for parents and pupils outside the charmed circle.
Toby Young, who famously wrote a book entitled “How to Lose Friends and Alienate People” may be suspected by some as simply making the case for Chiswick College in order to reap a rich harvest of publicity but I think that this would be unfair to someone who has certainly always been an unorthodox thinker but who earned a First from Oxford and was once seen by many to carry the torch of his Labour Peer father on to future generations.
Although Toby Young has resiled from his earlier statement that the proposed school was a reaction to the possibility that his children might have to attend the “local sink school” it does seem to this objective eye that the idea owes more to a fear of Acton High School than any attempt to achieve academic excellence.
There is actually a major national debate about such schools and the Swedish model is often prayed in aid.
Under this scheme parents can take what money the state would pay for their children’s education and simply set up a new school on the proceeds. This has led to a vast array of private commercial and occasionally charity run educational establishments but the constant factor seems to be fear rather than fairness.
Although the Swedish schools have been running for nearly eighteen years more than 80% of parents still choose state secondary education for their children and the figures are even higher for primary school pupils.
What gives the debate immediate and urgent relevance in the UK, and in Ealing, is the position of the Shadow Secretary of State for Education: Michael Gove.
Here I should declare an interest. I really like Michael Gove and consider him to be one of the sharpest brains in UK politics – as well as a sublimely gifted writer.
As a tribute to this passionate Aberdeen fan I once managed to name every member of the 1973 European Cup Winners’ Cup Aberdeen team (who defeated Real Madrid in the final after disposing of Bayern Munich) during an excessively tedious debate in committee on some dull fiscal matter.
Michael Gove has committed a future Conservative government to precisely the model that attracts Toby Young but while I can understand the philosophical position of parent run stand alone schools I just don’t see this is remotely practicable.
Parent power schools cannot, by definition, have any upper or lower size limit and I just wonder how the neighbours would react if a new Toby Young school was set up for the benefit of the parents of a few streets. In addition there is the ever painful area of admissions.
Toby Young talks of the suggested school as being a “comprehensive grammar”. I don’t know if he realises that grammar schools are, by definition, selective. That’s the whole point of them!
Much of the argument for and against will be cast in the old terms of plucky individualism versus the unresponsive state but that wholly ignores one of the great successes of modern education – Academies.
When the City Academy programme was having the rule run over it the tension between localism and national standards was a key part of the debate.
West London Academy, in Northolt, is a genuine success and has seen an oversubscribed school flourish in the same catchment area that its predecessor state comprehensive failed to attract. Freedom from the local authority can work but WLA still co-operates with local High Schools and shows me the benefits of a flexible system that can match parental aspiration without going totally overboard in Swedish.
The more rabid members of the National Union of Teachers who will have possibly been endorsing my comments in respect of Chiswick College will surely part company with me over my undiluted enthusiasm for WLA but that’s a price I have to pay.
Where I do agree with Toby Young is in his analysis of the lack of higher educational establishments in Acton.
Ellen Wilkinson is a brilliant school but it is single sex and Twyford Church of England High School is simply one of the best schools in the country but a non-Anglican boy is unlikely to be able to attend either of them. There are fine Roman Catholic secondary schools to the east and the south – even if Cardinal Newman RC High School was tragically closed in the 1980s by a short-sighted Diocese of Westminster.
Acton High is the only non faith high school easily accessible to people in Toby Young’s part of the world and much of the discussion has to be seen through this prism.
If dozens of street by street schools sprang up then it could be disastrous for Acton High – and for comprehensive education in the area.
Any parent wants the best for their children but setting up a personal school isn’t the answer.
Toby Young’s father, Lord Young, set up the Open University and it has been a magnificent success. The suggestion now on the table will be corrosive and I’d rather see the energies of local parents channelled into supporting and improving the existing provision while working with the local authority – as we have done in Greenford – to build a new high school where one is needed.
I suspect that Michael Gove will soon come to see that he has opened Pandora’s Box by giving the Conservative seal of approval to Toby Young. I also suspect that he is the sort of wise and intelligent man who will see the need to row back sharpish from what would be a nightmare in W4.
