| Topic: | Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:And as for Stephen Pound | |
| Posted by: | Toby Young | |
| Date/Time: | 13/07/10 09:10:00 |
| I complete agree with Maire. Regardless of Steve Pound's merits as a local MP, he ought not to stoop to lying in order to make the case against the West London Free School. In his most recent column in the Ealing Gazette he wrote: Brentside High School loses out so that some pushy parents can set up a bijou academy free of any sane inclusive admissions policy and teaching what they will to the little darlings who they believe will suffer irredeemable damage if they have to study with the ordinary kids who go to what are actually some of the best state schools in London. As I've pointed out here on numerous occasions, the WLFS will be a non-selective school committed to servicing the entire community. That is to say, our admissions policy will be fully inclusive. The only way it will end up as a middle class school is if non-middle class people don't apply and that will only happen if people like Steve Pound succeed in spreading the lie that the school isn't intended for them. To campaign against the school is one thing. But to invent things about it in order to discourage people from non-middle class backgrounds applying is wrong, particularly when it is precisely those children who stand to benefit most from the rigorous, academic education on offer. Then there's the second lie – that the reason we're setting it up is because we think our own children will "suffer irredeemable damage if they have to study with the ordinary kids". Nothing could be further from the truth. Indeed, we regard our children as "ordinary kids" and we want as many other "ordinary kids" as possible to come to the school. It is not us who are snobs, but our critics who are inverted snobs, assuming that the only possible motive a group of middle class parents and teachers who want to set up a Free School could have is snobbery. And this, in spite of being almost exclusively middle class themselves. Our reason for wanting to start the school is because we want parents who cannot afford to go private or move to a different catchment area or who aren't of the right particular religious faith to have access to a classical liberal education. Characterising that sort of education as "middle class" and trying to persuade non-middle class parents that it's not appropriate for their children will just perpetuate the rigid class divide that already exists, ensuring that most local children don't have access to an opportunity that could transform their lives. |