Schools' Are Out

Like many other parents in Surrey we waited up (or rather went to bed and then got up again) until 1159pm on Friday night order to find out what infant school my eldest daughter will be starting at in September. We were fortunate - schools in Tandridge are all good but we managed to get into our first choice. The state education system is still one of the last vestiges of post war central planning and the fact that allocation is done by a central bureaucracy rather than in response to demand is one of its drawbacks - something a Conservative government would change - and in my view for the better. However there is an irony for me here was that one of the main attractions of the school my daughter got into was its small size. It us clear that the biggest challenge for successful schools as they expand will be to make sure that they don't lose their winning formulas.