CHARLOTTE: I WANT TO OPEN SCHOOL
Charlotte Church has announced plans to open a new secondary school near Cardiff.
The pop star turned campaigner revealed her plans on Wednesday and has appealed for interested parties to get in touch.
In a tweet calling on teachers parents and “creatives” to come forward the Cardiff-born celebrity tweeted “liberate the child!”
Charlotte also spoke about the plans on Woman’s Hour on BBC Radio 4, focusing on the creative aspects of education.
Charlotte said on the radio show on Wednesday: “This is something I am so passionate about and I think it’s something I want to do with the rest of my life and just keep learning about education because I do think it’s the most important thing and I absolutely adore watching how kids learn.”
She added she would do her “absolute upmost” to make sure it was not fee paying as “that is not what I think schooling should ever be about”.
Charlotte said she doubted her plans until she recently spoke to several teenagers in the capital.
Speaking on the radio show, Charlotte said: “I started to doubt myself thinking well I’m going to try and build a school, and it’s such a Herculean task but also you know, I don’t necessarily have the credentials that lots of other people have or the experience - however after hearing them [the teenagers] speaking and what mainly came through was the fact that they are not listened to.
“That we, all of us, adults sit around and talk about education and what’s best for them but their opinions and their ideas and their own creativity about how their own education should go, it’s never listened to.”
Church has not revealed an exact location of any planned school, but in a response on Twitter Charlotte said it would be “near Cardiff ”.
The announcement gained hundreds of supportive comments.