New no-frills Private School opening in Durham?

[jessnthebeanstalk]

Has anyone listened to today's (20/06/18) You and Yours on Radio 4? It featured the new low cost private school opening in Durham in Sept 2018. Would you consider it for your LOs? It costs £52/week!

2 teachers teaching 100 kids!

State schools in Durham are a mixed bag but I wouldn't touch this with a bargepole.

Tbh, this is most likely to appeal to the various families that live in Durham for the short term because of the university or the hospital. Rented family accommodation near the better schools isn't always easy to come by.

And I give it a year. The site isn't even particularly suitable for younger primary kids.

They want good quality teaching but aren’t prepared to pay for it.

So, good luck hiring

The building site is unrelated

<a class="break-all" href="https://www.sunderlandecho.com/our-region/county-durham/durham-business-premises-demolished-to-pave-way-for-new-student-accommodation-complex-1-8459126/amp#referrer=www.google.com&amp_tf=From%20%251%24s" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">www.sunderlandecho.com/our-region/county-durham/durham-business-premises-demolished-to-pave-way-for-new-student-accommodation-complex-1-8459126/amp#referrer=www.google.com&amp_tf=From%20%251%24s

There's also building work going on at the nearby 6th form centre.

it’s a no then😅
I really wanted it to make sense and be worth serious consideration but by the end of the radio interview I was like 🤦‍♀️

I haven’t heard the interview but I am relieved to read such insightful comments. I can clarify that for the last 2 years this school has been trying to open as a FREE school (The leadership team received - 1.3 million the last time they converted from independent school to free) The DfE have rejected their application continuously. They have overcome this and now applied to open as an independent school, which has much less restrictions and has passed ofsted. A repetition of what happened to the hundreds of children at their last private school, who were left poorly educated compared to state schools peers is a serious concern. Children were left with no books to write in, no toner for the photocopier and teachers were having to use chalk and blackboards to teach. Meanwhile the headteacher was driving a top of the range Mercedes at a cost of £800 per month paid for out of the same budget. This being one of the reasons they were issued with financial warning notices. Furthermore, the underlying financial activity of the leaderships associated company appeared to be having great success. This private company (an educational advisory service, who employed people to work in the school) went from almost £0 to £870,000 in their filed accounts. Considering that the school was specifically accused of homophobia and racist bullying by ofsted themselves, which as a result led to huge disagreements in the playground between the original private parents and the newer free school parents - that were ignored by the School leadership. I think that it is important to ensure that no families or children get drawn into this potential School. Once your in there and your child makes friends it’s the hardest thing in the world to move them. Your stuck with paying increases or possibly it turning free and being bled dry. The disastrous outcomes of this leadership teams past attempts beggars the question - What does Professor Tooley actually know about these new associates he has given his reputation to - after all he is the Professor of Education for Newcastle University surely he would have conducted his own research?

Oh god I've just looked up the head - the chaos and utter debacle he caused at his previous school (very close to where I grew up so I followed the saga) was insane. The Ofsted report for that was incredible!

This one won't end well either

I thought OFSTED didn't regulate private schools? Ah OK. Quick Google explains that the regulation is normally done by the various associations for private schools and that process is inspected by ofsted, but ofsted inspect any schools not part of such an association directly.

In theory I can see the appeal of the idea of a "no frills" private school - there's a lot of people dissatisfied with the poor quality of education that can be achieved with the insufficient funding from the state (quick Google puts this at £4,900 at primary level and £6,300 at senior level) but not able to afford even the most reasonably priced "normal" private schools because a class size of 16 and all facilities absolutely world-class is going to be expensive.

Theoretically a thoroughly decent school could deliver a good standard of education - without all the extras and with class sizes still around 30 or only just under - for something like £6,400 per year at primary and £8,000 at senior level and that would make it a realistic option for a much greater number of people - switch your mortgage to interest-only for a few years, go camping in Dorset instead of going to a beach resort in greece in the summer holidays, and a lot of above-median-income households with no more than 2 kids could probably stretch to that.

If a system like that became popular though, the state schools would become ghettos for the children of those living near the breadline and problem children excluded from the naice schools who have no obligation to be inclusive. So that would be a pretty shitty result across the whole population.

I seriously doubt the head and founders will be running this for free, Infact I would hazard a guess it’s in some way quite an earner for them. Murky indeed. I actually feel sorry for the parents in the interview, I’ve been there and said the same things..... my god how we all suffered for it

Children were left with no books to write in, no toner for the photocopier and teachers were having to use chalk and blackboards to teach.

Well that’s seriously no-frills isn’t it?

Do they have a financial backer from elsewhere? Because otherwise it makes no financial sense at all even if you hired unqualified teachers and payed them less than the pay scale.

In terms of curriculum, it’s core knowledge. People either love it or hate it but with the exception of DT and computer programming I doubt there’s much chance that moving to secondary would be an issue in terms of missing things. Repetition of topics in is 3 might be more of an issue.

Professor James Tooley is evangelical about low-cost private schools in developing countries. I came across him in the course of my postgrad studies.

Iirc, formal evaluations of those schools were that they delivered ‘an education’, which is ultimately what you want in the context of a developing country and the need to meet the Millennium Development Goals, but that the quality was higly variable and often lower than state-funded schools (but where there were insufficient places).

Nowhere near Durham but I wouldn't touch a school like this. I want my kids taught by well qualified teachers, and where teachers are newer ones who have learned/are learning about teaching and about how kids learn and who have access to further development after they initially qualify.

In some developing countries there is very little access to free state education and even low fee education probably means that kids from better off (as in not the very poorest rather than middle class, say, as we might understand it) get to go, maybe only some of them, the boys not the girls or whatever.

Exactly, these schools mean that children might get an education (albeit rather basic) in a developing country where few other options exist. But the papers I read talked about poorly qualified teachers, few resources and children being educated in shifts. However, a place there would be better than no place at all.

Not like the conditions currently prevailing in Durham!

The school system in Durham is quite good though so not sure it will work there.

Headteacher is an interesting google search