Its perhaps not any great surprise that the Facebook page does not permit any comment from the public, only the selected few, however I would say here that in response to the Mirror article on the Batterseas school, in respect of selection, that the official response of this group, ie that it only competes with Montessori, misses the point. If such schools get public funding then they will be competing for that funding from state schools and the risk of a two tier system will only increase.

The disappointing and never'to be admitted' fact of life for this ConDem government is that despite Ed Balls much criticised micro management, Labour delivered a fantastic outcome for children and the education system in this country. Its not just me saying that, the results are pretty clear for all to see. I may not personally think grand projets such as as BSF were everything and I never in fact liked Ed Balls as a politician but the fact remains that in some inner city boroughs with the worst educational items, things have dramatically been turned around since 1997. I know of one particular 'sink' school on a 'sink' estate in south London whose results have been so fantastic that middle class parents are now clamouring for their own kids to get in. The situation isn;t perfect but we should not lose sight of what has worked before and continues to do so.

I don't also appreciate how the provision of an entirely new school will do anything other than tinker at the edges of current over subscription of reception places and I genuinely do not think that this alone is the answer. There are lots of factors which result in overcrowded schools with few places to offer as they are already taken by siblings, including the current recession which has reduced the general rate of geographical mobility. Ie families are staying put due to job security concerns and the little fact of not being to remortgage to move out of London and potentially up the ladder. There may yet be a prospect of the older classes being undersubscribed as a result. What might work is a split site model where one focusses on the lower age groups and the other on the older children. I myself went to a school which had to do this for much the same reasons.

I remain sceptical that a new school is not the answer to the problem it purports to solve. As you might guess I am extremely sceptical of this governments motives in the whole thing, exploiting as they do a problem in supply in order to argue for a totally new philosophy and a running down of public services.