Eton-sponsored Holyport College opens as first boarding free school

http://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/sep/05/holyport-college-first-free-boarding-school-eton

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The first boarding free school opened its doors to pupils this week, amid calls for state boarding provision to be expanded to benefit the most vulnerable children.

Holyport College, which is sponsored by its more exclusive neighbour, Eton College, began teaching 68 day pupils and 55 boarders in its new building in the village of Holyport, Berkshire. Founding headteacher Walter Boyle said other independent schools were studying Holyport's partnership with Eton, suggesting further boarding free schools could follow.

This week the rightwing thinktank, the Centre for Social Justice, urged the government to use state boarding schools to end educational failure among children from challenging backgrounds. Meanwhile, the SpringBoard Foundation charity, which supports children from poor communities to go to top boarding schools, is to triple the number of pupils it helps.

Boyle, who was deputy principal at Wymondham College, a state day and boarding school in Norfolk, believes passionately in the benefits of boarding. "If you take children out of chaotic home environments, if you can give them a nice stable environment in which they can live and learn, that can be the break the child needs to get the grades to enable them to go to university."

Holyport is one of the main beneficiaries of the government's free school programme, receiving £15m of taxpayers' money. Boyle, who comes from Northern Ireland and failed the 11-plus, later getting into a grammar school thanks to his secondary modern headteacher, describes the intake as "mixed". At least 20% are "vulnerable children", with special education, medical or social needs. Boarding fees are £3,850 a term (three pupils have been awarded bursaries) and with no other fees, it's a cheap boarding option.

"There's no academic selection for the school. We are an all-ability comprehensive school," said Boyle. "We don't want people thinking it's just for people from more advantageous backgrounds. The majority of our day pupils are just ordinary kids who live locally."

The immediate area around the school is leafy and well-to-do Holyport village has five-bedroom detatched houses selling for up to £1.25m – but children come from further afield in Maidenhead and Windsor. This year's intake, a 50-50 mix of girls and boys, includes a small number of ex-pat children and service children, and about 20 were in private education.

Eton is the school's sole educational sponsor and its influence is considerable. More than half of the governing body are from the Eton college community and Eton masters have been on job interview panels. Old Etonians have paid £140,000 for Holyport's Astroturf; Eton has loaned a Latin and art teacher free of charge and is opening up its rowing facilities at Eton Dorney - among other sports facilities - to Holyport children, who might even play Eton Fives. But this is not "Eton on the cheap" and Holyport children are not "poor cousins", says Boyle. "It's my job to run the school. We have to forge our own pathways and identity."