Discovery New School

July 21, 2010

To be or not to be that was the question. Were we going to be allowed to set up a new school?

The recent election, hung parliament and then hiatus that followed caused us to wait, with bated breath, to see whether the party or parties that won would allow parents and teachers to set up a new school, in our case a Primary school in the Crawley Horsham Area, Discovery New School.

Our story started 10 years ago after we had through a fluke experienced class sizes of under 15 for our first two children. We did not really want private school but wanted to create more than just a home school group. So we created and ran a small school for about 6 years, with under 15 children in a class. But our desire to be non selective, open to those who could not necessarily afford high school fees, and with an uncertain supply of funded children from WSCC it was a struggle to finance it, even though the children thrived and we had more who wanted to come than funded places. So when we became aware in the autumn of last year of the proposals to allow independent state funded schools, we started work immediately to find out the details. Attending a conference to listen to Michael Gove and others explain options and innovations in school funding gave us enough information with the help of the New Schools Network to start the long preparation process.

Now we have started discussions with West Sussex on possible sites, gained the support of our MP Henry Smith, and we are a few months into preparing information we expect to have to provide to make an application. As a Montessori primary school we needed to be set free to give parents a different option from the detailed state frameworks. We wanted to concentrate our effort on small classes, teaching in a small school where teacher’s contact time with the class is high and bureaucracy is as small as possible. Ofsted will work with new schools to ensure quality the same as any other state school.

Some argue that we might take resources from existing schools or that some schools may fail. It is an understandable concern. But new schools will get the same pupil funding and can buy back central services – if they are good enough and relevant. Many existing state schools have low expectations for our children and some existing schools fail, and the need for places is expanding in the SE. In our area most primary schools are in the bottom half of national league tables. We are motivated by the desire to change this, the best education should not be reserved for those that have the finances to pay for 15 or more years of school and University fees. Government has for more than a decade increased funding to education, but can we really say this has had the impact we expected? In light of this allowing more freedom for parents, teachers and the community to set up schools under tight set up and other controls is really not that radical, just common sense.

We will provide an alternative school of a 100 not 700, a class size of 15 not 28, and education without dogma or fad using Montessori methods. Teaching children will be the first priority of our teachers not process. By efficient use of resources, motivated teachers and support not tied up in the inefficiencies of our current education processes we will simply offer a choice for parents.

So where are we now – well, we in the process of changing from a not for profit organisation to a charity, creating the mountain of policy and other documents, looking and talking to various parties about sites, and of course starting to think about fund raising to help us through the start up. But mostly we are starting to run drop in sessions, where people can ask questions, offer support and show interest. If you like the idea, please register interest on our web site www.discoverynewschool.org

Andrew Snowdon, Chair, Discovery New School

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