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Message on schools
• I AGREE with all the points made in Ronit Dossa’s excellent letter on the creation of a two-tier education system in Islington (When choosing a school creates a two-tier society, February 8).
However, the one crucial point she missed was the role of our so-called political leaders in all this. What message does it send to the rest of us when so few of them are prepared to send their children to local schools?
Two of the country’s highest-profile politicians and Islington residents, Tony Blair and Lord Falconer, famously rejected Islington schools for their children.
The Blairs sent their children all the way across London to the Oratory and Sacred Heart. Charlie Falconer sent his to Westminster, one of the most expensive schools in Britain.
Even the current MP for Islington South, Emily Thornberry, chose to send her child outside the borough, to a partially selective school 14 miles away in Potters Bar.
The message it sends? “You might be good enough as voting fodder at election times but I wouldn’t want my son/daughter sharing a classroom with your child.”
What effect do they think this has on the morale of staff, the pride of parents and the self-esteem of pupils who have chosen to support/attend their presumably “sub-standard” local school?
Of course, Ms Thornberry and her ilk will tell us the education of their children is a “private matter”. Rubbish. What they do behind their bedroom doors and what they put on their toast in the morning are “private matters”.
Politicians who use local schools for photo opportunities and are members of a governing party which sets the educational rules for the rest of us should expect to have their own actions scrutinised and be judged accordingly.
AT
N5
Name and address supplied
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