I don't blame people for shunning the local comprehensive, says Blair

THE PRIME Minister yesterday provoked teachers' fury when he attacked inner-city schools and said he understood why some parents refused to send their children to the local comprehensive.

In a clear reference to his own decision to send his children six miles across London to high-performing comprehensives, he said some inner- city schools were so bad that he did not blame parents for "making other arrangements".

Heads said that was encouragement to parents to desert the state sector for private schools and teachers accused him of "self-justification".

The Blairs' decision to send their two sons, Euan and Nicholas, to the London Oratory, a Catholic grant-maintained school, in west London, caused controversy when it was revealed four years ago. Last week, Downing Street announced that their daughter, Kathryn, will attend the Sacred Heart High School all girls' Catholic comprehensive, near the Oratory, from September.

Yesterday Mr Blair said in an interview with BBC radio: "We simply have to bring about a different type of culture in the way we look at education where we don't have the levels of failure that we have in the present system.

"When I look at some of the inner-city schooling, it is no wonder parents feel they have to move out or to make other arrangements for their children. Every single child that is denied a proper education is a child that is not given a proper start in life."

Later Mr Blair continued his attack on bad schools when he joined David Blunkett, the Secretary of State for Education, at a conference of head teachers on the Government's Green Paper on the future of the teaching profession.

He acknowledged that pupils' social background influenced schools' performance but added: "We all know schools in exactly the same social position which differ widely in their performance."

David Hart, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, said: "We will never solve the problem of inner-city schools by encouraging parents to vote with their feet and desert inner-city schools for the private sector or comprehensives in more favoured areas."

Doug McAvoy, general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, said: "There is an element of self-justification in Mr Blair's words. He doesn't understand the varied and complex difficulties external to the school faced by teachers in the inner cities.

"His persistent attacks on teachers are aimed at convincing the public that teachers are not as deserving as nurses.

"Instead, he insists on destabilising existing teachers and discouraging young people from entering the profession, putting children's education in jeopardy."

Margaret Tulloch, of the parents' pressure group the Campaign for State Education, said: "He does not speak for all middle-class inner-city parents. Some are very happy with inner-city schools."

The Prime Minister warned heads at the conference inChelmsford, Essex: "I know from my own experience in my constituency and with my own children that there is insufficient understanding in this country of the fundamental importance of getting the education system right. If we have a second- class education system we will have a second-class country."

The Green Paper proposes that good teachers and schools should get more money and that all teachers should be appraised annually.

Mr Blair told the heads: "The public are prepared for us to make an investment in education but they want higher standards in return."

Challenged by his audience about the divisive effect of performance-related pay, he argued that the Government did not want to create divisions but had to face the reality that there were some good teachers and some not so good teachers.

Britain educated the top 20 per cent of children very well and the top 5 per cent extremely well. Further down, there were large numbers of children not getting the education they deserved.

Heads welcomed the priority and commitment given to schools but had reservations about the proposals. Kevin Arkell, of Boswells comprehensive school in Chelmsford, said: "They run the risk of putting staff against staff. A terrifying number of schools have improved in this country without using performance-related pay." The proportion of pupils at his own school getting five good grades at GCSE had nearly doubled during the last six years.

Alan Wright, head of St James' primary school in Harlow, questioned whether there were enough staff in smaller schools to cope with the new appraisal arrangements, particularly when so many other government initiatives were in progress.