Annoyed with your child's school? But nowhere else to go!!!

[Howlingwolf85]

Parents just want a decent school with small class sizes. But the only way to get it is by paying for private education or a huge mortgage in the catchment area of a good school. This just isn't fair. Anyone else as annoyed about this as me?

shall I provide a link to the Socialist Workers Party for you ?

no no! i actually think parents / teachers should be allowed to start up schools. i read about how they did this in sweden and it worked really well. it's weird how a lawyer can start a law firm up but unlike any other profession a teacher can't start a school!!! why not?

Have just come back from spending the summer in Sweden and frankly what I heard from friends and read in the papers about the quality of education since the deregulation of the schools was not hugely encouraging.

Sweden used to have the best education system in the world. With the deregulation it is crumbling to pieces as there are not enough pupils to fill both the new deregulated schools and the old state schools. Pupils are spread to thinly over both the independent schools and the state schools and pupils spread thinly-=resources spread thinly.

Came back very thankful for my dd's admittedly large but well resourced and well working secondary.

Though the local academy here in our UK home city has also been having huge problems, mainly due to poor management.

Aren't the tories proposing something along the Swedish lines?

What a coincidence that you've thought of it as well!

What worries me about the idea of parents starting up schools is the possibility that it will be the parents who beleive the world is a Great Big Onion and who don't want their children to learn about sex, evolution and sanitary towels, that will be most vocal in getting their school set up.

Isn't Toby Young setting up a school in North London? Would you send your children to it?
I have some issues with my DD's "bog-standard comprehensive" but in my opinion parental choice is not a panacea. Making sure that every school is a good school - now there's a radical thought.

Agree with OrmIrian - it would be all the madhatters with too much time and not enough sense - and it would be hard to monitor/moderate/inspect them all.

That's it, LadyG - he's proposing to start it up if the tories win the election (or needed something to write about last weekend).

I'm going to sit and worry with OrmIrian.