Private Schools (Access)

Lord Wharton of Yarm Excerpts

Wednesday 16th March 2011 Westminster Hall

[James Wharton (Stockton South) (Con)]

Thank you, Dr McCrea, for the opportunity to make a contribution to the debate. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Reading East (Mr Wilson) on securing the debate. I know that he cares passionately about this important subject, in which he is deeply involved, and that he is far more knowledgeable than I would claim to be. I want to take this opportunity to make a short contribution and to discuss my experience of some of the excellent independent schools in my constituency of Stockton South. We have two independent schools: Teesside High, which was founded in 1833 and, until recently, was an all-girls school; and Yarm, which was founded in 1978. It is the experience of Yarm school that I want to relate today.

Yarm school rose from the ashes of Yarm grammar school, which had closed. It was brought about by a group of determined parents, who decided that they wanted alternative educational provision for children from the Cleveland area, as it then was. Much as free schools today will be started in small numbers by dedicated parents and then grow, hopefully, into successful educational institutions, Yarm school started in an old, dilapidated building. Parents and supporters gave up their own time, donated materials, found funds, painted, renovated and taught.

The founding headmaster, Neville Tate—a great man who has made a significant difference to the education of many thousands of children who have passed through the school, and who will do so for many years to come—used to go in at weekends, paint the lines on the rugby pitch and drive the school minibus to the train station. It was a hands-on endeavour, to which many people, who cared passionately about what the school wanted to achieve, contributed.

In the early years, the school found things quite difficult and challenging because, unlike a modern free school, the parents who wanted to send their children there also had to pay. The offer that it put on the table was limited, as it did not have modern classrooms and facilities. All it had was the right attitude, the right atmosphere and a dedication and will to get things done.

That school has now moved. It bought the location across the road and expanded. It has built countless new buildings and offered educational opportunities to countless more children. I should, of course, declare that I had the privilege of going to that school in my constituency when I was younger. Now that the school is expanding and doing very well, it also makes a greater contribution to the local community, and not just in the education of its pupils or the local economy, of which it is a significant feature. It also works with local state schools. It had an excellent partnership with Grangefield school, which is in the southern Stockton part of my constituency, sharing services and working together to ensure that pupils at both schools had better access to facilities and a better quality of education.

Yarm school has a track record of delivering locally, not just for itself, but for others in the community that it serves and represents. It also serves another purpose. It relieves pressure on some of the excellent nearby state schools, which are currently overcrowded and oversubscribed; for example, Egglescliffe school and Conyers school. Egglescliffe school, in particular, which is a superb high-quality secondary school in my constituency, is on a relatively small site that was designed for many fewer children than it currently accommodates. With the growing population of Stockton, it has seen more and more people applying for fewer and fewer available places. It also serves a large and growing housing estate in Ingleby Barwick, which I believe is one of the largest private housing estates in western Europe and has grown exponentially in the past two decades. That housing estate has one secondary school, All Saints, a 600-place Church of England school, which is a very good local secondary school, but not sufficient in size to serve local needs. Hundreds upon hundreds of children are bussed off the estate to nearby Egglescliffe and Conyers every morning. Some also go to Yarm, because they have not been able to secure places at the secondary schools of their choice.

That brings me to the exciting new prospect that is on the horizon for the people of Ingleby Barwick, who are now progressing with their own bid for a free school. I have certainly done what I can to make representations to the Secretary of State to support the bid for a free school in Ingleby Barwick. We will hopefully see a new school in the next few years that will deliver diversity of choice and more school places, so that children from that community can choose which school they wish to apply to and parents which school they want to send their children to. It will also allow local children to go to a school in their own community. That will relieve pressure on other schools in the area, so that they can better manage the facilities that they already have. We want to secure the future of all of the schools in the south of the Stockton borough—the school in Ingleby Barwick itself and Egglescliffe, Conyers and Yarm schools.

That exciting new project is one step in the direction in which we need to go, opening up choice, diversity, access and possibilities in our education system. My hon. Friend the Member for Reading East spoke passionately about how he would like to see access opened, so that those who are not necessarily from the most affluent backgrounds are able to get into those schools that have perhaps been seen as not within their reach in the past. I would like to add my voice to his call that the Government should look to do everything they can to ensure that every child, no matter what their financial or social background, has access to the highest possible quality of education, in the way that they and their parents believe it should be best delivered to suit their individual needs.

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in the debate and make a small contribution, and to comment on a number of the excellent local schools that serve my constituency. I look forward to what the Minister has to say in response to the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Reading East.