After more than two years of deliberating, the Department for Education has finally approved a batch of new free schools, including three sixth-form colleges that will be funded and mentored by Eton.
This trio of academies will be opened in Dudley, Middlesbrough and Oldham – areas which contain some of Britain’s most deprived boroughs.
The Times has previously revealed that these colleges will all be ‘highly selective’ in terms of academic requirements, but will focus on recruiting pupils who live in particularly deprived areas or are on free school meals, to gear them toward the top universities.
Schemes like Eton’s are laudable, but they are little more than a sticking plaster on a blistering wound of a comprehensive system that destroys ambition
They have promised to blend ‘Eton’s educational philosophy and rigorous curriculum’, namely intimate seminar-style classes, with the ‘ethos and approach’ of their partner, a Lancashire-based educational trust already running 30 free schools and academies for which they have gained accolades.
No doubt these schools could transform the lives of youngsters lucky enough to gain a place, but claims they will ‘level up’ these areas, or even do much to revive meritocracy, are vastly overblown.
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