Disenchanted with the testing culture in schools

Now and then you do get an interesting article in the Guardian Education section.

Today Mark Piesing writes about moves amongst parents and teachers to break away from the state system:

Fiona Carnie, from HSE [Human Scale Education], who is also a consultant at the Centre for Educational Innovation at the University of Sussex, says: "These teachers and parents just want to bale out. They are disenchanted with the testing culture and spoon-feeding found in schools. By setting up for themselves, the teachers are reclaiming their professionalism."

For others it is about the needs of their community. After the shop and pub closed in Priors Martin, Warwickshire, the headteacher and villagers were determined not to also lose their primary school when the LEA wanted to merge it with a school four miles away.

Trustee Carolyn Bath says: "The initiative came from the whole community, not just the parents. They raised the money to employ a teacher and in 1996 it reopened with one teacher and 12 students ... Sir John Harvey Jones opened the school and gave us three years. We're still going strong after 10."