Every year, thousands of parents face the situation I did in 2014 when I realised that I could no longer afford to educate my ten-year-old daughter privately. At first, I didn’t panic. After all, I lived near some excellent state schools.
After queuing for two hours one cold winter Saturday morning for Open Day, we learned that to gain a place at Holland Park you had to live within yards of it, or win a heavily oversubscribed art scholarship, which my daughter attempted — and failed. I still didn’t worry. Why should I have, when 93 per cent of children under 16 in England are educated in state schools?
We queued for one Open Day after another. We tried a couple of church schools, but as non-churchgoers our chances were slim. I visited Hammersmith Academy, Burlington Danes — the list went on. We loved the West London Free School, so I started phoning the admissions secretary with a regularity bordering on harassment.
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In March 2015 Hammersmith and Fulham Council informed us we had not received a place at any school of our choice. The council is obliged by law to find every child a school though, so I went to see the one assigned to us. It’s an all-girls Catholic school, rated ‘good’ by Ofsted. I walked past chipped statues of the Virgin Mary in dusty alcoves and shabby classrooms. The atmosphere was sad, and I felt my optimism drain. I harked back to my own privileged education, boarding at an Elizabethan castle in Kent, and felt as if I was failing my daughter. Meanwhile, her friends won places at Benenden, St Paul’s or Latymer Upper. Friends suggested abandoning London, but our life, home, friends and my work were in London.
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