The New School’s Network is booming. Compared to last year the coalition governments’ new proposal to allow parents and teachers to run schools has met with a 70 per cent increase in interest.  Around 750 applications have been filed by groups of parents and teachers wanting to take educational matters into their own hands and run their own schools.  This quiet revolution signifies a huge change in the potential educational fortunes of the UK. There are around 33,000 state schools in the UK. The 750 initial applications for new schools may seem a small number on the transfer list but a tidal wave of conversions could ensue if the results of this vanguard movement are proven positive.

The success of the scheme, modelled on a successful programme in Sweden, could herald the greatest breakthrough in our teaching resources for decades.  It could also reveal the travesty of how we have damaged many schools through a series of failed national initiatives.  The application of the national curriculum promoted through state governed schools could be proven to have been a disaster for generations of children, parents and teachers. Our teaching standards and objectives, muddled by the application of educational objectives manipulated by the government and local educational authorities, have impacted on the quality and depth of education received by school children.

Research shows the overall standard of educational achievement has fallen. Critically, in a now global marketplace, competition for employment will be ever more intense as the commercial centre of gravity moves forever East.  The macro approach; national policies, local education authorities, SAT’s ,GCSE, national curriculum and educational quangos appear to have failed. The New Schools initiative, steered by the lowest common denominator- the parents of school children, will focus on the opportunity to provide children with the depth of education they need and deserve. If these new primary and secondary schools are the long hidden answer they will be thanked by generations of children to come. And a few past secretaries of state for education may need to take long hard look in the mirror.

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Tags: Education

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