A new way over the wall

Want your sprog to be toughened up on the playing fields of Eton but can’t afford the fees? From September there is an intriguing alternative. You can send him instead to Holyport College, a free school which is opening in the shell of an old special school six miles away. Though the chairman of governors, Simon Dudley, insists his new school is not ‘Eton Lite’, the website offers more than a hint that here is an opportunity to obtain an Eton-standard education for a third of the price, if your child boards, or nothing at all if he doesn’t.

‘Eton College is our sole educational sponsor,’ reads the blurb, ‘and therefore brings its educational and pastoral expertise to Holyport College.’ Pupils are promised the use of sports facilities, evening speaker meetings, and the chance to rub shoulders with Etonians.

Eton is not the first public school to dabble in educational provision for the great unwashed.Wellington College has sponsored an eponymous academy since 2009. The London Academy of Excellence, opened two years ago in Stratford, is sponsored by eight independent schools including Eton, Brighton College and Highgate. As well as borrowing some teachers from the sponsoring schools, the academy runs a buddy system in which its pupils are teamed up with private school pupils.

They even go on visits to see how the other half lives. ‘I got to visit Eton College boys, who wear tailcoats. That was a bit of an experience,’ one pupil at the academy enthused, as if he had just been on a safari.

Independent schools have scored a victory in their long battle with the Charities Commission. In 2006, the commission demanded that private schools with a charitable foundation must do more to demonstrate that they were providing a public benefit, pressing in particular for more bursaries for children from poor families.