A debate on why and how ethnic-minority students are under-represented at highly-selective universities gave Charles Fillingham real pause for thought
In 1979, Sir Michael Rutter, Professor of Developmental Psychopathology at the Institute of Psychiatry in London examined the difference that a good secondary school can have on a child in his celebrated book, Fifteen Thousand Hours. Rutter, the first person to be appointed professor of child psychiatry in the UK, asked whether schools can help their pupils overcome the adverse effects of economic disadvantage.
Some educational commentators, even more than 40 years later, would suggest that the answer may be in the negative. Rutter, however, contradicted the pessimism of the time to reveal the possibilities of education ? schools can make a difference. To settle for schools that simply act as institutions of containment seemed to Rutter to be a strategy of despair. As a 21st century educationalist, his work remains a key motivation for me. Inequality matters at Francis Holland, Regent?s Park, every bit as much as it matters elsewhere. Schools such as ours confer advantage on our pupils, not least because the parental body is rich in cultural capital and because the school offers an unparalleled range of opportunities, both academic and social.
I want the pupils at Francis Holland to always remain mindful of their privilege and to go out into the world as a force for good. To that end, I was delighted to be able to organise a ...