Mon 17 Jun 2019 17.40 BST
Last modified on Mon 17 Jun 2019 18.10 BST
Robert Verkaik’s implicit assumption that all private schools are like Eton should not go unchallenged (When will Corbyn take on the might of private schools, Journal, 14 June).
My own independent school is located on the borders of Lewisham and Greenwich, both of which cater for large numbers of socially disadvantaged children. Colfe’s works closely in partnership with a number of local comprehensives and, thanks to our scholarship programme, more than 10% of pupils in our sixth form qualify for free school meals. This statistic is higher than most state grammar schools and many comprehensives.
More than 50 such pupils have gone on from Colfe’s to top universities in the last five years. In the fullness of time, some may even find their way to the judicial benches or the Palace of Westminster.
In common with many other independent headteachers, I would welcome a debate about the role of independent schools within our education system. In particular, I would like us to consider how such schools could become engines of social mobility, rather than privilege, to ensure that “the might of private schools” can be harnessed for the benefit of all.
Richard Russell
Headmaster, Colfe’s School, London
• Not all of the pupils who attend private schools come from wealthy families. Many hard-working parents pay for their children with special educational needs to go to small independent day schools for the kind of help they do not get in state schools. If these schools are made too expensive through taxation, or are phased out, there will be a flood of children with Asperger’s, dyslexia and other special education needs into a system that cannot cope with them as it is.
Helen Brown
Crowborough, Sussex
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Source: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2019/jun/17/private-schools-can-serve-the-public-well
