Michael Gove Could be Right

Maybe Michael Gove is right. *ducks for cover and dons hard hat. Maybe schools should be open for longer, so that parents can work more hours without their bothersome offspring getting in their way and taking their hard earned wages in child are costs. After all, so many parents want longer free child care. This week I heard about a little boy who, despite hating football, was forced to go to football club because his mother worked late that day. There needs to be provision for these poor little souls who would rather have high tea and be snuggled up in the common room, while the Den Mother reads them a nice story.

Maybe he's right and you shouldn't be able to tell the difference between a private and public school. Parents want their children to have an equal education to those whose parents pay for it. I agree.  Let's have the things they have in private schools.

Here are some of the things I think we should have that they had at a private school I visited recently.

1. Boarding.

2. Fantastic catering (including wine for teachers at lunch)

3. Large sports fields, tennis courts, shooting 

4. A drama studio with every sound and lighting gadget you could wish for.

5. A concert hall with a perfectly constructed ceiling to gain the best acoustic.

6. Several grand pianos that are in tune with no missing keys.

7. More professional percussion instruments than the LSO

8. At least 8 members of music staff for 545 pupils between the ages of 4 and 19.

9. Class sizes of 15-20 pupils.

10. Longer school holidays, so that families can go skiing before it gets too expensive or to Spain and get a place in a kids club.

The government could afford that, surely? I mean these schools only charge about £30,000 from pupils and attract large donations from ex-pupils and wealthy well wishers. There are 9.5million school age children in the UK, so that would only cost £285,000,000,000 a year (plus the donations). Obviously, there would be the costs to increase the school building sizes first but let's just forget those for now, I'm sure they're insignificant.  Last year's government education spend was £56,300,000,000 so we would only need to find an extra £228.7 billion, surely we'd all be happy to pay more tax to fund that? It would a a lot cheaper than paying a childminder or paying extra for out summer holiday wouldn't it?

(*figures are approximate)