Cameron’s daughter will go to a leading state secondary
DAVID Cameron is to become the first Conservative Prime Minister to send a child to a state secondary school after accepting a place at a Church of England academy a short walk from Downing Street.
The Prime Minister has been privately worshipping at a London church once a week for several years.
Now he and wife Samantha have decided to send daughter Nancy, 11, to the Grey Coat Hospital, a CofE school in Westminster, from September.
It is a significant break from tradition for a Tory leader – and for the Camerons personally, given that the Prime Minister was educated privately at Eton and his wife at Marlborough College.
Grey Coat Hospital is thought to have been the family’s second choice for Nancy, after another church school in West London.
Like hundreds of thousands of parents, the Camerons heard this week from their local authority which of several applications had been successful.
A family friend has revealed that they have now accepted a place at Grey Coat Hospital – a choice which will be seen as an indication of Mr Cameron’s confidence that he will still be in power later this year, given its proximity to Number Ten.
The school is rated outstanding by education watchdog Ofsted and is one of the most soughtafter state schools in the area, with seven applications for every place. Tory chief whip Michael Gove sent his daughter Beatrice there last year, when he was Education Secretary.
Featuring recently in Tatler’s guide to the best state schools, its sixth-formers produced 71 per cent A* to B A-level grades last year. Many went on to Oxbridge and other elite universities.
The school is ethnically mixed, with only around a third of its pupils being white. It also prides itself on being a social melting pot, with children from council estates mingling with those of middle-class professionals.
Headteacher Sian Maddrell insists on strict discipline, with pupils placed in detention if they forget books, are disruptive or even glance at the clock during lessons. They are barred from using detention time to do homework, instead being expected to read an ‘improving book’.
The school admits girls aged 11 to 18 and boys only in the sixth form, with 151 places allocated for this year’s intake.
A total of 116 are reserved for girls from practising church families, preferably with attendance for at least 40 weeks of the year for the previous five years. A further 15 go to pupils with an aptitude for languages, with remaining places filled on an open basis, with preference given to those living nearby and attending ‘feeder’ schools.
The school was founded on St Andrew’s Day in 1698 to educate poor boys and girls so they could be ‘loyal citizens, useful workers and solid Christians’.
‘Loyal citizens and
solid Christians’