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Park School
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Location: Airlie Gardens, Campden Hill Rd, London W8 7AF, United Kingdom.
Website: http://www.hollandparkschool.co.uk/
Phone: +44 20 7908 1000
Holland Park School
Holland Park School was opened in London, UK, in 1958. It became the flagship for comprehensive education, and in its heyday had over 2000 in the student body.A number of high-profile socialists sent their children to Holland Park School, adding to its reputation as a left wing institution. Tony and Caroline Benn notably sent all 4 of their children to Holland Park.
History of Holland Park School:
In the 1960s and 1970s, the Holland Park School philosophy was to ensure large student numbers (over 1900) with the idea that the resulting size would enable more subject choices for the students. Indeed, amongst the more typical foreign languages Latin, Russian and Spanish were taught.
In the early 1960s, each school year was divided into A, B, C, D, and E streams up until the 3rd year. As the groups were so large, they were again divided, typically into 3. Later the "A" "B" etc. grading was considered to be bad for children's self-esteem, so "A" "B" and "C" were replaced by "H" "P" and "S" (Holland Park School).
In the late 1970s, under Derek Rushworth, streaming was totally scrapped in favour of total egalitarianism. Another aspect of egalitarian thought was that many school traditions were scrapped and in the late 1970s there were no awards for academic achievement, in order not to demoralise low achievers. Dr Rushworth nevertheless favoured high achievement in niche areas, and himself continued to teach Latin to children who requested lessons. His motto was "Everyone should know about everything," and critics saw this as leading to a dumbing down of the curriculum.[3]
The theory was that poorly achieving students would perform better if not segregated, but rather immersed in an equal learning environment. Some argue[who?] that such and educational philosophy causes teaching to drop to the lowest common denominator, and in the 1990s the school began to revert to more traditional teaching practices.
Loyalists of the egalitarian approach argue that the experiment was never given a proper chance: Holland Park was the only fully comprehensive school in a borough where middle class parents tended to favour private schools. Therefore, by definition, it was a sink school and thus some argue that the comprehensive experiment was never fully realised. Critics[who?] counter that the school was on a downward spiral and "more of the same" would only have worsened the situation. They hold that the school's improved performance when it returned to more traditional values is evidence the comprehensive experiment was doomed from the outset.
