EDUCATION ALTERNATIVE?

The great Fitzwilliam Museum - could it open for school classes?

Our cheerful Prime Minister on the tennis court in the summer sunshine – caption ‘No Bawls Please, PM time out from fatherhood’’. looked the epitome of sporty fun. But where, can you play in private in central London? Answer, Winfield House on the edge of Regent’s Park, known as the finest residence in central London with the biggest garden after Buckingham Palace, stretching for 12 acres – sold to American heiress Barbara Hutton for $1 - she donated it to the US as an ambassadorial residence. But it wasn’t always the lush mansion of today. During the Second World War RAF pilots came there to recuperate. Like many buildings all over the country from small country houses to grand stately homes it was put into service for a national emergency. 

Now that’s an idea ?

Lovely places can be also very useful. Even the Queen Mother turned over one of her London houses as an educational resource, a residential centre where students, from University College London, learn about fascism. Newcomers are initially stunned at the enormous baths and vast rooms, but enjoy the chance to learn in this surprising environment.

So if someone as grand and conservative as Queen Elizabeth can re-purpose her house for education, can’t it be done again to help the dire situation where millions of British children are forced to stay away from school because of over-crowding during the Covid-19 period?

Britain is packed with beautifully maintained buildings – the National Trust alone has hundreds the length and breadth of the country. All are ready for use cleaned, swept decorated for visitors. And all are useless at the moment, emptied indefinitely by the threat of disease. But they could be carefully  - temporarily - re-used in a great cause.

Children cannot go back to school. The teachers are keen, the spirit is willing but the practicalities are too difficult. There is not enough space to accommodate so many small classes. So why not judiciously open some of large airy rooms in the grand buildings all over the land to well supervised pupils?

In Cambridgeshire, Wimpole Hall has its many polished floors in rooms prepared for guests. And Cambridge University does have classrooms, seminar spaces, lecture halls all going to waste. But how, you might reasonably ask would they be staffed? With class sizes advised at only seven pupils, who would run these ad hoc centres? Now Teach has had huge success with a scheme to recruit talented graduates to take a turn at school education. No one uses it now, so presumably the candidates are mostly at home. And trainee teachers, who have had classroom experience could club in,  in the same way as medical students have helped in hospitals.

There is a surplus of volunteer workers who could fill in for the missing staff. 

So why not a major push to get every child back in education? Yes, school will have changed, and yes they need transport in some cases to get there, but a massive effort from everyone to cooperate in an educational emergency would begin to fill the dangerous gap opened up in so many young people’s lives.

Instead of hanging a ‘ Shop Shut Up’ sign on every door, can we not use the surplus of large pleasant buildings to house the pupils desperate for some kind of school to begin?

And some of these gorgeous places do have large grounds and sports facilities.

Anyone for tennis?

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