[Kizzy]

'The Education Secretary, Michael Gove, has approved a plan to spend £45m on a free school, making it almost certainly the most expensive in the country even though it has just 500 students, The Independent has learnt.

The cost of setting up the Harris Westminster Sixth Form for high-achieving students is six times the average cost of establishing a free school and equates to around £90,000 per pupil.'

'Senior officials have privately questioned the value for money of the school which aims to send half of its pupils to Oxford or Cambridge and will prioritise children who are on subsidised school meals or who come from deprived areas, provided they first pass its selection test The school said that of the 167 children offered places for its opening in September 61 per cent met those criteria'

How can he justify this overspend? 6 new schools could be built across the country for the cost of this one in Westminster.
And is this 'testing' just a return of the 11+?

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/ed...e-9222364.html

[Toy Soldier]

The way I can see it as justifiable is if it is ONLY for very intelligent kids who would otherwise be drafted into a state school with a poor record. I personally have no problem with academic elitism: it's a simple fact that some kids who are highly intelligent fall through the cracks because they are from poorer socioeconomic circumstances and end up with very few opportunities, whilst some (frankly) distinctly average kids end up at good universities and then going into better careers simply because their parents could afford private school fees. Anything that can even slightly remedy that, is welcome.

I've never been a fan of "lowest common denominator" schooling. The brightest kids should be given room to grow and should not be held back by classmates who aren't of the same ability level. I know that's not the popular opinion these days, but anything else is just willfully holding back a vast pool of academic and economic potential. Conversely, I think kids who are clearly never going to achieve well academically should be steered away from academic subjects at an earlier stage. We currently waste untold resources pointlessly trying to teach "everyone everything".

However, I doubt that's what this school would actually be in the end. It would probably just end up a free private school for parents who could afford a lot of private tutoring for their children.