This was originally published in Tes magazine on 30 June 2017. 

Mark Lehain’s next role - his professional reason for being - will be to lead a campaign promoting a “knowledge-rich curriculum”.

But the director-to-be of Parents and Teachers for Excellence (PTE), freely admits that his views have not always been aligned with his future employers’.

In fact, when he was setting up Bedford Free School - the move that made Lehain’s name in education - he promoted a fixed allocation of “Google time” for pupils.

The idea that young people should be given time online for their own online searches for knowledge would make many of his new neo-traditionalist allies wince.

“I wouldn’t even dream of that now,” Lehain admits. “So, like a lot of people, I have been on a journey. Different people along the way, and different things I have read, have helped me.”

He cites a visit to Bedford by Conservative schools minister Nick Gibb as a key turning point. After walking into a geography lesson where pupils were doing a rap about Fairtrade coffee, the schools minister turned to Lehain and said: “This is all very nice, but could they tell you the capital of Sudan?”

“If I had been clever, I would have said, ‘Do you mean Sudan or South Sudan?’” he jokes. “But I realised that our kids couldn’t.

“That just got me thinking, ‘What are we doing with all the time we have got with these children? What do they actually know and understand about the world?’”

Now Lehain - who describes himself as a “convert” to ED Hirsch, a US academic who influenced Michael Gove’s and Gibb’s curriculum reforms - hopes to rally more parents and teachers to join the cause.

He will step down from his headship at Bedford, which was one of the first free schools, to become the first director of PTE in September. It is a campaign also promoting other key pillars of the neo-trad agenda: rigorous testing, effective discipline policies and cultural enrichment.

Lehain, who went to a comprehensive school in Berkshire before going to Cambridge, admits that it was only at university that he realised how little he knew, compared with friends from private schools. “I just put a lot of what I didn’t know down to being a slightly awkward state school boy,” he says.

“I know anecdote is a poor basis for policy. But that really woke me up. I didn’t know until a few years ago that Garibaldi was anything other than a biscuit,” he says.

But it is not just about history and geography, Lehain insists. Making sure that every pupil gets access to the arts and broader culture is “integral” to the approach he is promoting. “Cultural literacy is not just about boring facts. It is about watching West Side Story and it becomes richer and deeper because you understand that it is building on Shakespeare,” he says.

Lehain’s own passion for the arts emerges during the interview. He admits to being a musical theatre fan and cites West Side Story as a favourite. His love for music first blossomed during his time at secondary school.

“I picked up a guitar when I was 12 and it changed my life,” he says. “It gave me something to work hard at. I was never meant to be a headteacher, I was going to be a rock star but that didn’t quite work out.”

Now every pupil at Bedford Free School is taught a musical instrument from scratch. “We have increased our arts provision in recent years because we think that it is important,” Lehain says.

‘Singing from the rooftops’

Funding cuts and the government’s push for the English Baccalaureate have made it harder for schools to keep the same arts provision. But Lehain insists that it is still possible to promote the arts, and says that PTE will, appropriately, “shine a spotlight and sing from the rooftops” about those schools that do keep a broad curriculum.

The Conservative manifesto for this year’s election featured a section on a knowledge-rich curriculum. But Lehain, who speaks warmly of Tory ministers like Gove, says the timing of his move to PTE was a coincidence.

“I was literally on the phone to the chair of my trust saying, ‘Actually, I am going to move on from Bedford Free School,’ when Theresa May walked out of Downing Street to announce that there was going to be a general election,” he says.

The group’s aims have been associated with Gibb and Gove. But Lehain insists that his new organisation is “explicitly non-partisan” and that its overall goals are neither rightwing nor left-wing.

“All too often the debate is between politicians and union leaders and educationalists in the Westminster bubble,” he says. “I think it would be even more powerful if we could get that debate out on the grassroots among parents and teachers on the playground or at parents’ evenings.”

The free-school founder is also keen to move away from a discussion about structures - academies and maintained schools - and instead wants to focus on what takes place in schools today, now that so many have greater autonomy.

Target of public abuse

Lehain has experienced first-hand how divided a community can be on education. He left his first teaching job at another Bedford school after seven years to set up a new free school in the town, relying on his savings to do so - but he quickly faced a lot of opposition.

After one debate in Bedford, Lehain recalls “a whole queue of people lining up to hurl abuse” at him.

“It was a quite low moment,” he says. “It was just my wife and I trying to do something that we thought was good. To have your integrity and motivation challenged so much wasn’t fun.”

He doesn’t anticipate an easy ride in his new role either. “Not everyone is going to agree with what PTE is pushing, and, do you know what, I am OK with that,” he says.

But Lehain is clear that ensuring parents have a say about practice in their child’s school is vital. “You won’t find a teacher in the land who thinks more parental involvement is a bad thing,” he says.

Bedford Free School finally opened in 2012 amid a planning battle with the local authority. On the opening day, a planning enforcement notice was handed to him from the council giving them just 48 days to close down.

The father-of-four is leaving behind the school that he founded just as his oldest daughter starts there. “The president of BMW doesn’t drive an Audi,” he says. “They drive a BMW. My kids have got to go to my school because if my school isn’t good enough for my kids, then it’s not good enough for everyone else’s.

“I am really proud that in Bedford Free School we have got a school that I know will be insanely good for my daughters. And that has taken a lot of hard work and it has really not been easy.”

@Eleanor_Busby