I agree with Bernard Trafford, head of a leading independent school, that Star Trek-like we “should stride out boldly and seize the opportunities” supposedly on offer from the coalition Government.
However, I cannot accept his characterisation of teachers as battery hens conditioned to passivity during the last two decades. During that period there was certainly a degree of conformity but there was also a good deal of underground, creative, educational subversion in children’s interests.
Indeed, the film Chicken Run could have been shot in a good many state schools. We now need to draw on, and develop, that reserve of subversion. There will be plenty of takers leading “the great escape” from excessive conformity. And they will not all be in the independent or free school sectors.
Professor Colin Richards, Spark Bridge, Cumbria.