I have a dream!

I support the idea of providing parents with some (if limited) ability  to choose schools. The problem is that the Free Schools and Academies are free in some ways, see the list below but aren't free from the constraints of OFSTED and their idiotically prescriptive view of teaching.

• the ability to set their own pay and conditions for staff
• greater control of their budget
• freedom from following the National Curriculum
• freedom to change the length of terms and school days
• freedom from local authority control.

Freedom for schools should mean freedom to teach how they see fit. After all in a market led economy, surely choice should mean providing the consumers (parents and children) with a choice of the mode of delivery. As a consumer of electricity I couldn't care less how the electricity company is regulated but I do care about the cost. Similarly, parents are mostly concerned about the outcomes of teaching not the peripherals.

So my dream is allow schools to advertise how they teach. Imagine 2 schools in a local area.

School A "We follow a traditional curriculum and teaching methods. Children are pushed to achieve, are streamed by ability, sit in rows, make notes, and sit frequent tests.

School B "We allow pupils to work at their own pace in a mixed ability classes. Our teaching is interactive, we teach using a variety of learning styles and we never sit tests, they are far too stressful.



My bet is that school A would be heavily oversubscribed. But we don't want the parents to have a say in actual teaching do we?