I knew I shouldn’t have gone to the Economist’s end-of-summer party last month. Within seconds of arriving, I was buttonholed by Venetia Butterfield, publishing director of Viking. Two years ago I signed a contract with Viking to write a book about class and education, but I got sidetracked by the West London Free School. The due date came and went and I’ve been dodging Venetia ever since.
‘Don’t think I’ve forgotten about the book you owe me,’ she said, jabbing me in the chest. ‘But I’ve thought of a way you can make amends. Penguin are publishing a series of short e-books this Christmas and I wondered if you’d like to do one on how to set up a free school?’
I was feeling so guilty I said yes immediately without thinking. The following day my agent called, having been sent a contract by Penguin. ‘You didn’t really say yes to this, did you?’ she said. Apparently, by ‘short’ Venetia meant 10,000-15,000 words and she wanted it by 7 November. That was exactly six weeks away.
‘Guess how much they’re proposing to pay you?’ she asked.
‘I dunno. Five thousand pounds?’
‘Nothing. Bupkis. Nada.’
A writer with more pride than me probably would have told his agent to get him out of it, but I didn’t want to let Venetia down for a second time. So I decided to knuckle down and get on with it.
In truth, the experience hasn’t been too bad. I began with a narrative account of the adventures I’ve had setting up the West London Free School and it all came tumbling out — the nastiness of the opponents, the backbreaking labour, the satisfaction of seeing it through. For a writer, it’s always a good sign when it flows easily. You’re generally in two modes — constipated or incontinent — and moving from the first to the second can be quite tricky. I also surprised myself by how many funny moments there were. Things that seemed catastrophic at the time — like turning up with my parent group for our first appointment at the Department for Education on the wrong day — are quite amusing in hindsight.
That’s the 4,000-word introduction. The rest of the book is a step-by-step guide to how to do it and that, too, was easy to write. Over the past two years I’ve accumulated a vast store of knowledge about setting up free schools and being able to get that down on paper before it disappears into the ether was satisfying. In 2009 I met a man called Sandy Nutgens who led the efforts of a parent group in Lambeth to set up a voluntary-aided school and he complained about being on a ‘vertical learning curve’. I now know what he meant and it’s been good to decant that knowledge before the ‘vertical forgetting curve’ kicks in.
I finished the book at 3 a.m. on Monday morning and the final word count is 24,827. I think that’s the first time I’ve written something two-and-a-half times the minimum length required. And for nothing!
I’m quite proud of it, actually. I wouldn’t say it’s the most entertaining thing I’ve ever written, but I’ve done a reasonable job of boiling down a lot of complicated information into something vaguely digestible. For anyone thinking of setting up a free school, it’ll be required reading. Trouble is, that’s a fairly limited market. Penguin will be lucky to sell 1,000 copies — which is why they didn’t offer me an advance, I imagine.
Apart from the sheer pleasure of getting it all out of my system, I had a more serious motive, which is to stop the free schools policy being hijacked by the educational establishment. The set-up process has become a lot more onerous since the West London Free School got through it and I’m worried that amateur groups like mine will find it harder to navigate. The playing field is now tilted in favour of organisations like E-Act, the multi-academy sponsor run by Sir Bruce Liddington, a former civil servant at the Department for Education. He’s announced he wants to set up a ‘super-chain’ of 250 free schools. That won’t leave much room for all those ‘little platoons’ out there. Hopefully, by writing this guide, I’ve done a small amount to redress the balance.
Then again, it might have the opposite effect. Caroline read the book last night and wasn’t convinced it would encourage others to follow in our footsteps. ‘Most people reading this will think, “Bugger me, I had no idea it was so difficult”,’ she said.
Toby Young is associate editor of The Spectator. How to Start a Free School is published by Penguin on 1 December.
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