Russell Brand and Nigel Farage remind me of myself five years ago

I’m often asked by other free school proposers what lessons I’ve learnt over the past five years. Any pearls of wisdom I can pass on so they don’t make the same mistakes?

My standard response is to reel off a checklist of things I would have done differently if I’d known then what I know now. To take just one example, we probably wouldn’t have introduced a ‘no packed lunch’ rule if we’d known that we’d have to provide all our four-to-seven-year-olds with free school meals. But the biggest lesson is one I daren’t share, which is that trying to give children a better education than the neighbouring local authority schools, with no additional funding, is really, really difficult.

When I embarked on this crusade, I thought I’d just be able to sweep in, create a blueprint based on a traditional model, and sweep out again. Opposition from the teaching unions, left-wing activists and the local authority? No problem — just bulldoze through.