Media-friendly free school is blending old ways with new

School 21 in the multiply disadvantaged, ethnically diverse east London borough of Newham opened its doors in September last year.

It was a free school that had a completely blank canvas: no traditions, no routines, no ethos, no track record, no Ofsted report, no set of exam results. But it set out to make its mark, to become a school for those with zero privilege to thrive through a dynamic transformation of their learning and thereby of their prospects. It is still early days for the school, which wants eventually to be open to pupils aged from four to 18, with 75 children in each year group.

Aspirations for a rich, relevant and exciting curriculum that is stimulating academically, socially and emotionally for the development of the whole child have been articulated many times before. School 21 may become yet another failure in the footsteps of earlier attempts to establish progressive and meaningful education. Or it may turn out to be, among all the schooling experiments currently under scrutiny (academies, other kinds of free schools and more traditional independents), a blueprint for the 21st century.