‘Camden school pupils still get a wonderful and rounded education’

STARTLING statistics coming out of the council this week suggesting that around four out of 10 Camden parents can afford to send a child to private school.

These figures can be read as households turning their backs on Camden state schools. But year by year, more and more young families leave the borough because of the cost of housing, often in search of a suitably sized home in which to raise children.

The people who move in are part of a new wealthy generation. We talk about the painful cost of living crisis in Camden. But then again almost half of households are able to afford an extra £30-40,000 a year fees.

Is it not alarming to think that nearly half of Camden teenagers are taught in a completely different world from the other half?

The Labour party has committed to removing charitable status from private schools and the associated exemptions from VAT and business rates.

The extra funding would then be used to increase state school spending per pupil, which has completely stalled in the past 10 years.

This would be a big help for Camden secondary schools, none of which are currently rated “outstanding” by Ofsted.

But can a comprehensive school system be expected to function properly when a broad range of families no longer participate?

Sceptical parents say they don’t ask for much. They simply don’t want their child to be hurt, want them to be inspired and to get the attention they deserve.

Few can argue with that. But does the reality of state schools match the scare stories that have become so entrenched.

It is a quirk of memory that we most clearly remember the worst rather than the best aspects of the school days of our youth.

We forget the months of great teaching and support, and focus on the odd knife found in the bushes or bullying at the bus stop.

Successive years of funding cuts and low pay has created such a difficult life for state school teachers.

On top of this, the inspection system is becoming more unforgiving while nevertheless being digested in such black and white terms by parents.

The government has let down our schools, often preventing them from flourishing. And yet despite this, Camden school pupils still get a wonderful and rounded education.

It might not lead to a job in a bank or a top job in the civil service. But they may in later life come to feel more comfortable in their own skin and perhaps more likely to look out for one another.

We say to the 40 per cent, you don’t know what they are missing.