Industry News

Independent schools 'need to be innovative'

Posted on 29th May 2007

There is little point in independent schools if they are not going to innovate, the head of Wellington College has claimed.

Speaking to the Guardian newspaper, Anthony Seldon believes that schools have allowed themselves to be dictated by universities, employers and the government.

Schools have "replaced education with instruction", Mr Seldon argued, with personal, social, and emotional development of children neglected during their educational years.

With some schoolchildren coming from deprived backgrounds with little infrastructure at home, schools should help children emotively at a young age since "if schools aren't going to do these things, who is?".

People come out of schools with "no understanding" of anger, depression and anxiety, he added.

Welcoming the recent proposals made by education secretary Alan Johnson, which include suggestions for private schools to lend teachers and share facilities with state schools, Mr Seldon last week said it would end educational "apartheid between the state and independent sectors".