You know Tilda Swinton, right? She’s the Oscar-winning British actress, model and all-round darling of indie cinema.

You may not know, however, that she’s also co-founder of Drumduan School in Moray. Nor that she met with education secretary John Swinney after the school had asked him to fund it to the fine tune of £600,000 per year for three years.

A freedom of information request by Tes Scotland revealed that the meeting came about after Mr Swinney was sent a proposal by the school, located in Forres, in the north-east of Scotland, via local MSP Richard Lochhead.

The school, whose website says it is “inspired by the work of [Austrian philospher] Rudolf Steiner”, argued that the £600,000 funding would allow it to remove the current that fees it charges, and become “truly inclusive and representative of Scottish society”. That way, the model would be “scalable across Scotland”.

The papers sent to Mr Swinney reveal that formal education at the school doesn’t begin until age 6, homework isn’t introduced until age 12 and pupils don’t sit exams but instead produce “high-quality portfolios”.

The pitch for funding was first made in December 2016, with Ms Swinton and Mr Swinney meeting in February 2017.

The freedom of information response shows that, ahead of the meeting, Mr Swinney stressed that he was not in a position “to make any funding offer to them at this time”, and an email sent the following day reveals that “funding was not discussed beyond Drumduan saying ‘we are a fee-paying school but do not want to be’”.

When the governance review was concluded four months later, Mr Swinney wrote to Mr Lochhead to say that the government would not be able to fund the school.

Mr Swinney said: “Where [Drumduan School] has developed new approaches to meeting particular needs, I hope that it may be able to work with Education Scotland and the other schools in the area to showcase and spread good practice.

“However, it is necessary that we invest our limited public resources in local authority schools.”