Every now and again, my alma mater is in the news, and why wouldn’t it be? Britain is obsessed with schools and class. Bedales provides ample fodder for both: the boarding school in Hampshire is famously ‘liberal’ – and was so even when England was famously illiberal. Bedales, whose graduates include Lily Allen, Kirstie Allsopp and Daniel Day-Lewis, is the educational equivalent of Tatler smashed together with Vogue.
Bedales hit the headlines again this week because it is the first school in the country to ditch GCSEs – those entering now will take just two, in maths and English. The rest will be a mixture of the usual subjects like history and physics, with Bedales’ own-brand, such as outdoor work (including learning how to corral sheep).
I found myself in a sea of terrifyingly glamorous and sexually experienced teens
This almost total abandonment follows the swapping, in 2006, of half of GCSEs with BACs (Bedales Assessed Courses).The
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