Interview: author Melissa Benn on her new book, School Wars
Melissa Benn talks about her new book, School Wars, at Pages of Hackney on 10 November
Melissa Benn’s native Queen’s Park is miles away from Hackney, but the two areas have a few things in common – not least the artisan bakeries and Victorian terraces.
East and West London are home to two of the most talked-about schools in the capital. Since it opened in 2004, Mossbourne Academy in Hackney has caught the imagination of parents and politicians for its strong exam performance and sense of order. Likewise the West London Free School in Hammersmith has been the star of many a headline since it was announced by journalist Toby Young.
Inner-city comprehensives have long been focal points for a critical national media, but both the coalition government and the papers have found a new interest in academies and free schools.
Will they create a disciplined generation, forestalling future unrest? Or will they turn out a divided and repressed class of young people into an economy of limited opportunity? It’s not just the long shadow of last summer’s riots which make these questions feel so pertinent.
Melissa Benn, daughter of former Labour MP Tony, is a journalist and mother and has long campaigned for comprehensive schools. Her new book School Wars covers the history of comprehensives and critiques aspects of academies and free schools – selection, sustainability and lack of accountability – which she feels may fail students in the future.
Benn recalls feeling confused by Mossbourne principal Sir Michael Wilshaw’s reaction to local riots in August: “On the Monday after, he made a statement on how he was looking forward to 13 offers from Oxbridge for his students. I thought it was an odd sort of thing to say. Your whole borough’s erupted and that’s all you’re saying?
“To me, that sets off the difference between an elite and a would-be elite trying to shape our education system, and the disenfranchised – ie. a largely privately educated front bench facing off this summer’s rioters. I felt there was a mismatch there. What’s the answer to what’s happening on the Pembury Estate, Oxbridge entrance? That’s an extreme way of putting it.”
“The point about academies and free schools is that they are granted significant freedoms – and frequently, greater resources – that then give them the edge over other, hard pressed local schools. They represent another tier of schooling in an already bewilderingly complex and often unfair schools landscape, ” she said.
Benn explains that, while she won’t sugar-coat the argument, the reason she keeps championing inclusive education is simple: “I’d never say there weren’t problems in schools, but it’s like the bigger political argument: do you go into something and improve it, or do as this government’s now doing and destroy it?”
Her daughters attend the local comp and while she admits “it hasn’t always been a perfect experience”, she has always tried to support it from the inside.
I point out how different her position is from that of Hackney North & Stoke Newington MP Diane Abbott, who was hauled over hot coals after sending her son to an out-of-borough private school. Benn won’t be drawn on Abbott herself, but says she feels that there has been sea change amongst parents’ attitudes.
“There’s an emerging strengthening strand of self interest parents feel,” Benn says. “We’re in an economic crisis which intensifies their fears. People worry, “’Will my child get a good job? I can’t afford for them not to.’”
Questions still hang over new schools like Mossbourne – to whom are they accountable, and what criteria are used to select students? Benn says she’s still investigating the lines of authority in academies and free schools: “The governing body tends to be a tight group who support each. The academies are only accountable to the minister in Westminster really.”
Despite the fact Benn finds the academy and free school model ‘undemocratic’, she recognises Sir Wilshaw’s success and admits that in many ways, Mossbourne is inclusive: “I feel the school proves comprehensives could work, and that the privatised aspects of it are unnecessary.
“It’s genuinely educating Hackney children to a proven high standard. I don’t want to attack the school – I just want to ask questions.”
For all its research and depth, School Wars also has its fair share of idealism – part of the reason that it’s so readable.
Benn’s vision is as clear in our interview as it is in her writing. In an ideal world, she tells me, schools would be at the heart of communities, engage students and help them negotiate the world of learning-to-earning. Boldly she claims that if schools played that role in our society, then we wouldn’t see the scenes of violence we saw over the summer.
As someone schooled at a comprehensive I feel emboldened by it. But the sad truth is, leaders in the coalition government can’t and don’t reminisce over the umbrella togetherness I knew as a child. Will academies and free schools bridge the widening gaps between classes and cultures, or will they make our inequalities more severe?
As someone schooled at a comprehensive I feel emboldened by it. But the sad truth is, leaders in the coalition government can’t and don’t reminisce over the umbrella togetherness I knew as a child. Will academies and free schools bridge the widening gaps between classes and cultures, or will they make our inequalities more severe?
Note: this article was amended at 2.15pm Thursday 17 November 2011.
In talking of an elite facing down the disenfranchised Melissa Benn was not talking about Mossbourne or its executive head but a largely privately educated front bench facing off this summer’s rioters. This has now been clarified in the amended article.
The article previously defined academies and free schools as institutions that select children according to social class, ability and faith. Many schools do that already, and so this sentence in the article has been removed.
Related: