Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Free school for Harringay?
Primary school doesn't seem to be such an issue (apart from oversubscription).
What are people's views of secondary schools?
Is there a group of parents that would like to look into this?
http://www.education.gov.uk/schools/leadership/typesofschools/frees...
If anyone is interested in setting up a free school for their children then please add me as a connection and direct message me...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-21080809
A C Greyling is apparently trying to set one up in north London... Does anyone know more about this or where it's going to be?
Replies to This Discussion
-
Permalink Reply by Liz on
-
I would have thought you'd lived here long enough John to know that understatement by the British means the exact opposite.
-
-
For Blume's stuff yes. I've linked above to two of his articles in the Guardian and his blog which also has some stuff about free schools on it
-
Permalink Reply by John McMullan on
-
This discussion has made me think that perhaps there is room for an after school club that is actually like the one my son's school provide for him (£4 per hour) in which he does his homework, supervised. The after school club provided at North Harringay School was just baby-sitting. As I've said before, after school care can be provided tax free via childcare vouchers and you could probably hire someone of very good quality and not need to provide all that stuff poor Toby Blume is. The local primary schools around here are perfectly adequate but if you have any ambition at all for your child you will be helping them out at home yourself if you can or getting them tutored.
Assuming it was in the KFH offices in the Colliseum - or better yet, in one of the local schools that religious groups seem to be exclusively allowed to use...
* Arrive 3:45
* 15 minutes drink and snack
* 40 minutes prep/homework/reading - assistance offered via the traffic light system
* 10 minute drink/break
* 30 minutes watching something educational on TV and then 10 minutes questions/answers about it.
* Pack everything up - go home/get picked up - It's 5:30
You'd need one qualified teacher and perhaps a volunteer assistant. If 27 people paid £9 each child then it would have £5265 per month to play with and the actual cost would be less than £9 because you'd pay for it from pre-tax earnings. Regardless, £9 for an hour and a half of that is cheap childcare.
Caveat: the council would never do this themselves as it allows people who earn more to pay less. I'm not aware if there's something more fair done with childcare vouchers for those who earn under the tax threshold for instance.
-
-
I'm uncomfortable with the tax/vouchers/income implications. i.e. the more you earn and the more tax you pay, the more of a winner this is. I've been thinking about it a bit more today and it's a minefield of further inequality. Maybe if you could convince teachers to just do this anyway and pay them a bit more. You'd need to have them on non-collective agreements first so every school would have to be "Free".... oh... wait.
Other than that, middle class after school club sounds like jolly good fun. No?
-
Permalink Reply by Birdy_Too on
-
Actually John, kids do do homework, reading and their daily journals at NHP ASC, it may not be in the comfort of the school fee paying, middle classes but it does happen. Just to clarify like.....
-
-
They never used to.
-
Permalink Reply by DavidJ on
-
My kids went to the ladder after school clubs (North and South they were joint for some years) and perhaps they were not very 'sophisticated'; but what was great was that they would spend a a couple of hours playing. They didn't do homework, watch tv, do computer games but they played - running around, football, rounders, basketball, chase . . . playing. Fab.
-
Permalink Reply by Karin on
-
Personally I think free schools are a waste of time and distract from the real issues of successive government meddling with the school system in England and Wales.
Look at how it works in Scotland. Each school has a defined catchment area. That determines your school. Schools are local authority controlled. No academies, no free schools, no whatever Michael Gove's latest fad is.
Is there a shortage of secondary school places around here?
-
-
I think you're confusing ambition with dreams.
"How was school today?"
"It was OK. There's a new girl in our class. Her name's Anastasia. She just says Hello."
Now THAT'S ambition.
London is full of people with ambition for their children! Their ambition is to have them learn English!
-
-
Which they do within the space of a couple of years. What's your point? That the best a newly arrived kid can hope for on this country is to learn English? Tell that to the young woman I taught, now a reporter on TV, whose family arrived from Afghanistan with barely the clothes they stood up in and who were placed in temp accommodation in a downmarket bit of Camden. I've got plenty more success stories like that. Of course they are ambitious for their children. You forget that non- English speaking parents from abroad didn't live in a vacuum. They are teachers, musicians, businessmen, plumbers, doctors, although they may not have the options to do those things here.
My point is that in discussing free schools this conversation doesn't turn into an excuse to have a go at local schools as inadequate and therefore local parents need to panic into buying education or setting up their own. Your views of local schools are tempered by your own experiences and personal views on education. So are mine.
My children are happy, stimulated and progressing in their local schools. They are safe and well-cared for. They have a variety of experiences as well as more homework than I ever had to do at Primary school. My daughter is writing and reading far beyond what I would have expected at her age and her maths is already outstripping what I can do. Yesterday, she had a discussion with me about child mortality rates in Tudor England.
The local schools here are good. Don't take my word for it, even under the new 'tough' criteria of Ofsted they are deemed good. If that's not enough for some parents, if they can't find what they think their children need in their local school, that's fine, that's their choice, their money, but they don't need to try and talk down local schools nor imply that having children who don't speak English as a first language in their class is a hindrance to justify that choice.
This discussion was originally about a free (secondary) school not about primary or after school provision. If you (or others) want to set up a private after school club, feel free, but let's give Bethany's discussion back to her. After all, a free school could just as easily be Summerhill as it could be a school for the aspiring middle classes.
© 2024 Created by Hugh.
Powered by
