A “Free School” could be opened in the borough of Greenwich if a group of teachers and parents get their way.
The idea is being put forward by Nouvelles Racines (meaning “New Roots”) which is is a not-for-profit company based in the borough headed up by two French secondary school teachers, Gladys Delphin and Semikian Konate.
They have been teaching French at a Saturday school in West Greenwich for the past two years and now wish to branch out and run a full time, non-selective school teaching the International Baccalaureate (IB) which has a strong emphasis on modern languages.
They propose taking pupils between the age of 5 – 18, which would enable them to offer all three IB programmes – Primary, Middle Years and sixth-form Diploma.
Gladys Delphin says that the new school would give “every child the chance to have a shot at studying the three rigorous but highly regarded IB programmes.”
“Up until now they have only been taught at four schools in England, all of them fee-paying. It’s an ambitious plan, but children from Greenwich and neighbouring boroughs deserve the best.”, she added.
Free Schools are a new policy initiative from the coalition government which enables parents, teachers, charities and businesses to set up a state funded school outside of the control of local authorities.
No site has yet been chosen for the proposed school but Greenwich.co.uk understands that Nouvelles Racines has made preliminary enquiries about the old Charlotte Turner School building in Deptford.
[…] Racines had previously outlined their desire to set up a new languages state school outside of local authority control but their bid was not one of the first sixteen announced by the […]