Written in diary style, this is an incredibly useful personal journey through the confusing and frustrating maze that is finding a school for your 11 year old child if you don’t want to pay for it. After all, we all pay our taxes and much of that goes into the education pot so for most it seems madness to pay for it even if one could afford it. The author is an award-winning investigative journalist who through his personal experiences of finding a school that would get the results he was seeking and in his local catchment area. Taking a sideways look at our increasingly complex education system School Daze is packed with up-to-date information on the coalition’s latest education plans. It’s a must-read for all parents of children about to make the move to secondary school.
Click here to read online an article written by Andrew Penman about his book School Daze, published int he Daily Mirror. Click here to download an image of the article.
School Daze: My Search for a Decent State Secondary School Synopsis
It should be simple. When your children reach the age of 11 they go to the comprehensive down the road. The one funded by those taxes that you’ve been paying all these years. But what happens if the local comp is an academic black hole where the majority of children cannot achieve the undemanding task of getting five GCSEs with a grade of C or better? What do you do if the next alternative gets great results, but it’s a faith school and you don’t go to church? Do you fake religion? Move house? Hire a tutor to cram your children into a grammar? Become a fraudster to fund private school fees? One thing is certain. You’ll panic. It won’t be the sort of brief panic you get when you think you’re about to crash the car, but the long-term kind of stress that goes on for years. Daily Mirror journalist Andrew Penman knows.
Andrew Penman's book is an eye-opener about the traumas parents can face when choosing a school for their children. It makes me glad I've only got a dog to look after! - Richard Garner, Education Editor, The Independent
Author
About Andrew Penman
Andrew Penman is an investigative journalist on The Daily Mirror. He has twice been named Consumer Journalist of the Year by the Trading Standards Institute and won the 2010 Hugh Cudlipp Award for his campaigning work. He is married with two children and would quite like them to have a decent education. He lives in Woking, Surrey, though that could change if the local schools don’t work out.
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