School News

The first Montessori school to want to join the state sector has run into opposition because of fears that it would be too popular with parents.

Its application is backed by the Department for Education but opposed by the local council, which says it could lead to empty places in its own primaries.
The council's refusal was backed by the schools adjudicator, who said: "With its new facilities, it might prove attractive to more families.

"If this were the case, then the anxieties expressed by the local education authority, schools local to the proposed site and other objectors would prove to be well founded."

The head teacher and parents of Brighton and Hove Montessori School have six months to decide whether to re-apply but say that they fear another failure under the current rules on establishing new voluntary aided schools which are partly funded by churches or charities.
Daisy Cockburn, the head teacher of the private school, said: "It has been an extraordinary waste of taxpayers' money, our time and the time of DfE officials."
David Willetts, the shadow education secretary, says the council's objections could be compared with remarks by John Prescott, the Deputy Prime Minister, this year: that the danger of setting up a good school was that everyone would want to go there.

Read the full article: Montessori Hope of Joining the State Sector Opposed - Telegraph 30-09-2006

Ministers talk of widening parental choice, but a Montessori school's fight for state funding shows the reality. David Willetts, shadow education secretary, details the absurd rules

Pippa Edwards has a dream. It is never to have to turn away a parent too poor to send their child to the popular school she works at in Brighton. If she succeeds it will become the first Montessori school in the country to win state funding. “My aim is to provide free Montessori education to all families in Brighton and Hove,” she says.

Research published in the journal Science last week revealed that by the age of five, Montessori children — who learn at their own pace and are not subject to testing — are better at maths, recognising words and playing co-operatively with other children. So you would think that Brighton and Hove Montessori school would be welcomed into the state sector with open arms.

Think again. Pippa Edwards has been battling for 13 years, in vain, to realise her vision.

While the government backed the school’s bid for state funding, the local authority had other ideas and obstructed the application. So Brighton and Hove Montessori took the case to the government-appointed independent schools adjudicator.

“If you set up a school and it becomes a good school, the great danger is that everyone wants to go there,” said John Prescott in an interview. Everybody mocked this, but chillingly, it is an accurate account of the way the rules work at the moment.

Read the full article: Sorry, you can't have a new school, it might be popular - The Sunday Times 01-10-2006

A Montessori school on the south coast is on the verge of making history. John Crace pays a visit

As most of the rest of the education system goes one way - with head teachers being given more control of budgets; licence to increase pupil numbers; greater freedom in the delivery of the national curriculum - one of the country's more unconventional schools is bucking the trend. Down on the south coast a small private primary school is determined to become state run; the first Montessori school in Britain to be funded by the taxpayer.

Brighton and Hove Montessori school was started by Daisy Cockburn in 1985. She attracted her first pupil by sticking an advert in the window of the local deli. More soon followed by word of mouth, and she now has 70 children, aged between three and eight, based in two sites on a leafy, residential street a mile or so from the town centre.

Read the full article: Different Strokes - Education Guardian 13-07-2004