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The head of a private school has said he would rather close down than see it become part of the state system.
Magnus Bashaarat, of the £37,000-a-year Bedales in Hampshire, made the claim in the wake of the Labour Party conference voting to “integrate” private schools with the public sector.
He said: “Were I to be given the ultimatum, tomorrow, that Bedales be made a state school, and that it should follow the national curriculum and policymakers’ preoccupations with the transfer of knowledge and disregard for humanities and the arts, I would decline. I would rather we shut our doors.”
At last month’s party conference, Labour voted to scrap private schools, redistribute their assets among state schools and end their charitable status and tax privileges.
But Mr Bashaarat condemned the state system’s focus on “the stultifying effects of competitive examinations and the importance of social background to academic achievement”.
Writing in The Times, he said he liked the idea of a national education system without the dichotomy between state and independent schools but that the UK had an “awfully long way to go” before it was ready to integrate the two systems “without sacrificing everything good that we do”.
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Sara, 11, is a Syrian refugee living in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley in an informal tented settlement. She attends UNRWA-funded Jefna school where she is top of her class and regarded as the brightest child in the school by her teachers
Paddy Dowling
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Sara helps her mother Fatima around the house watering the pot plants, washing the concrete floors and helping to prepare the meals in the kitchen
Paddy Dowling
3/14
Behind the family tent is an old disused quarry where the Bedouins’ sheep graze the hard thistle plants. Sara can see across the Bekaa Valley to the mountains, beyond which is Syria and the distant memories of the old life they had
Paddy Dowling
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Sara is keen to leave the tent, which leaks water from the roof when it rains and in the freezing cold winter months the snow drifts in. She dreams of having a nicer home
Paddy Dowling
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She spends almost all her time in the tent when not at school: her brothers Ali and Deeb won’t let her play football with them
Paddy Dowling
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Hadi, 2, is taught some basics of English by Sara to prepare him for enrolment into an UNRWA school when he is 6. Unlike the others, Hadi was the only one born into tent life. He cares for the stray dogs that visit the settlement and plays with the abundance of stones in the old quarry
Paddy Dowling
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Deeb accompanies Sara to buy bread from a small shop run from a neighbours home. Sara’s family cannot afford to buy luxuries like meat on the $260 per month cash vouchers they receive from UNRWA and therefore their meals only consists of rice, potatoes and salad
Paddy Dowling
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Sara is a beneficiary of Educate A Child, a programme of the Education Above All Foundation. As well as core curriculum subjects, she is also receiving psychosocial support to assist her with any trauma she may have been exposed to while fleeing their homes from the civil war in Syria
Photos Paddy Dowling
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Sara and her family visit Beirut on our final day in Lebanon. It was Sara’s first time on an escalator and, after being cautious at first, she soon found her feet and was leading her family around the city with confidence
Paddy Dowling
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When she eventually leaves Lebanon to continue her studies and pursue her dream of becoming a doctor, she imagines the cities will be big and beautiful just like Beirut
Paddy Dowling
11/14
Ali and Sara have never seen the sea, let alone stood on its shores and played in the shallow water. Her brothers are now inviting their sister to come and play with them, which is very unlike things are back home in the tent where Sara’s place is indoors helping with chores
Paddy Dowling
12/14
Sara, Ali and Deeb chase the white water on Lebanon’s coastline. As the waves break on the sand, so too do the barriers between siblings. They laugh together and have forgotten about their struggle for now
Paddy Dowling
13/14
At 11 years old, Sara could never have imagined becoming a refugee. Sitting on a swing in Beirut, she hopes for a better future built on a good education and psychosocial support made possible by EAA and UNRWA
Paddy Dowling
14/14
Sara has dreams of moving to Canada, Europe or the Gulf states where she can study in English and eventually become a doctor. She didn’t ask to be a refugee and refuses to give up her fight for a better life. Sara wants to be able to contribute to a society by becoming a doctor to help others
Paddy Dowling
1/14
Sara, 11, is a Syrian refugee living in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley in an informal tented settlement. She attends UNRWA-funded Jefna school where she is top of her class and regarded as the brightest child in the school by her teachers
Paddy Dowling
2/14
Sara helps her mother Fatima around the house watering the pot plants, washing the concrete floors and helping to prepare the meals in the kitchen
Paddy Dowling
3/14
Behind the family tent is an old disused quarry where the Bedouins’ sheep graze the hard thistle plants. Sara can see across the Bekaa Valley to the mountains, beyond which is Syria and the distant memories of the old life they had
Paddy Dowling
4/14
Sara is keen to leave the tent, which leaks water from the roof when it rains and in the freezing cold winter months the snow drifts in. She dreams of having a nicer home
Paddy Dowling
5/14
She spends almost all her time in the tent when not at school: her brothers Ali and Deeb won’t let her play football with them
Paddy Dowling
6/14
Hadi, 2, is taught some basics of English by Sara to prepare him for enrolment into an UNRWA school when he is 6. Unlike the others, Hadi was the only one born into tent life. He cares for the stray dogs that visit the settlement and plays with the abundance of stones in the old quarry
Paddy Dowling
7/14
Deeb accompanies Sara to buy bread from a small shop run from a neighbours home. Sara’s family cannot afford to buy luxuries like meat on the $260 per month cash vouchers they receive from UNRWA and therefore their meals only consists of rice, potatoes and salad
Paddy Dowling
8/14
Sara is a beneficiary of Educate A Child, a programme of the Education Above All Foundation. As well as core curriculum subjects, she is also receiving psychosocial support to assist her with any trauma she may have been exposed to while fleeing their homes from the civil war in Syria
Photos Paddy Dowling
9/14
Sara and her family visit Beirut on our final day in Lebanon. It was Sara’s first time on an escalator and, after being cautious at first, she soon found her feet and was leading her family around the city with confidence
Paddy Dowling
10/14
When she eventually leaves Lebanon to continue her studies and pursue her dream of becoming a doctor, she imagines the cities will be big and beautiful just like Beirut
Paddy Dowling
11/14
Ali and Sara have never seen the sea, let alone stood on its shores and played in the shallow water. Her brothers are now inviting their sister to come and play with them, which is very unlike things are back home in the tent where Sara’s place is indoors helping with chores
Paddy Dowling
12/14
Sara, Ali and Deeb chase the white water on Lebanon’s coastline. As the waves break on the sand, so too do the barriers between siblings. They laugh together and have forgotten about their struggle for now
Paddy Dowling
13/14
At 11 years old, Sara could never have imagined becoming a refugee. Sitting on a swing in Beirut, she hopes for a better future built on a good education and psychosocial support made possible by EAA and UNRWA
Paddy Dowling
14/14
Sara has dreams of moving to Canada, Europe or the Gulf states where she can study in English and eventually become a doctor. She didn’t ask to be a refugee and refuses to give up her fight for a better life. Sara wants to be able to contribute to a society by becoming a doctor to help others
Paddy Dowling
School should be “a preparation for life”, rather than a job, Mr Bashaarat insisted.
Bedales, which counts Daniel Day-Lewis, the star of There Will Be Blood, and Kirstie Allsopp, the Channel 4 property presenter, as former pupils, had stuck “pretty faithfully” to the idea that school should be a preparation for life rather than simply work, he said.
“The same cannot be said of the state system, however,” he said. “Disingenuously, ministers have dismissed this history as a progressive aberration.”
Mr Bashaarat also said the “unholy triumvirate” of Boris Johnson, David Cameron and Jacob Rees-Mogg had made the Eton brand “toxic” and that the number of prime ministers coming from the same school was a “legitimate concern”.
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