Toby Young Toby Young

The school of my dreams

My friend Barry Isaacson has just sent me an email about the Renaissance Arts Academy, a Charter School in Los Angeles that he’s just been to look at with a view to sending his son there.  Charter Schools are the American equivalents of Free Schools – ie, privately-run, but publicly-funded. If Michael Gove makes it easier for parents/educators to start schools like the Renaissance Arts Academy, then more power to him. This is precisely the kind of school I’d like to start in Acton.

Here’s Barry’s description:

“This place is an astonishing local institution founded by parents with distinguished teaching experience and very uncompromising standards. It’s a so-called ‘Arts Magnet’; it appears that charter schools here are funded according to local requirements for educational specialisms and RenArts emphasizes music, dance and drama. It’s important to understand that Jenny and I do not want to find the Los Angeles equivalent of Dartington Hall – I can think of nothing worse — and turn poor Nathan into Twyla Tharp.

However, it’s the combination of arts emphasis and an uncompromisingly classical curriculum that appeals to us. The school site is a converted department store in Eagle Rock. Classes take place in large, open spaces, allowing for a certain amount of cross-communication between older and younger children. The space is bordered by soundproofed rehearsal rooms, with libraries, a teachers’ lounge and various other annexes leading off the central area. All ‘scholars’ (as they are called) must play a stringed instrument and homework consists only of one hour’s required practice per night. There is no academic homework but stringent standards are set by the curriculum, which is taught by a combination of professional musicians and PhDs in the individual subjects with a shockingly good teacher-pupil ratio relative to state school standards.

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