A new report by independent think-tank Civitas reveals the existence of a sizeable and largely unknown part of the education sector, known as supplementary schools. There are hundreds, and possibly thousands, of supplementary schools that have been set up to help children whose needs are not being met by the state schools they are attending. They represent a new flowering of civil society, as parents act to defend their own children's interests without depending on the state. However, according to the report in the latest edition of Civitas Review, there are plans to control supplementary schools via regulation by a Government quango, and these should be resisted.

In spite of Tony Blair's pledges to ensure that all schools give children an equally good chance in life, the evidence of very poor performance by some parts of the state sector is overwhelming. A third of children finish primary school unable to read and write at the required level for entry to secondary schools.

An OECD study found that the advantages of a private education are greater in Britain than in any other country studied except for Brazil and Uraguay. However, only a minority of parents can afford the fees of independent schools: in most families, parents have no option but to send their children to state schools. For middle-class parents the problematic parts of the state sector can be avoided in two ways: by moving to an area within the catchment of a good school (which inflates house prices by thousands of pounds) and by hiring private tutors. In London the demand for tutors is so high that the best ones can charge anything up to £80 an hour.

'These families are forced to rely on the resources available within their communities. And these communities are proving innovative and responsive… Civil society has come into its own. So it is social pressure, arising out of the unmet need for better educational opportunities, that has fuelled the burgeoning sector of supplementary schooling.' (p.9)

The supplementary schools - now estimated by the DfES to number 5,000 - operate after school, at weekends and in the school holidays. They depend on voluntary support, sometimes being run by teachers and organisers who donate their time or work for low rates of pay. They are supported by private donors, by charities, and sometimes by local authority agencies and official bodies like Connexions. They are diverse in their methods of organisation, funding and teaching. Some operate within full-time maintained schools, run by some of the teachers from the school's staff for the benefit of children who need a bit of extra help. Some are run by ethnic minority organisations who wish to preserve their mother tongues and culture. Some are run for the benefit of children who are failing to learn even basic literacy and numeracy at their state schools.

Civitas runs its own programme of supplementary schools, teaching reading by phonics and maths without calculators. It currently runs Saturday schools in Bethnal Green and King's Cross, and two after-school classes in King's Cross. It also teaches English and maths to boys who have been excluded from school as part of the London Boxing Academy Community Project in Tottenham. According to Robert Whelan, Deputy Director of Civitas:

'It is not true that poor parents are not interested in their children's education. They feel as passionately about it as middle-class parents, but they have fewer options open to them. Often they are within the catchment area of failing schools, and they can't afford private tutors. Parents may have low levels of education themselves, and can't always give their children the help they need. In our supplementary schools we have come across seven-year-olds who can't read and eight-year-olds who don't know their two-times table. Their parents realise that their children are in danger of being seriously handicapped in life, whichever ethnic group they belong to. The supplementary schools are a lifeline for them.'

Civitas plans to open further schools in Keighley (Yorks), Hammersmith, Croydon and Small Heath (Birmingham). Civitas also encourages other groups of concerned citizens to think about starting their own supplementary schools.

'At the moment it is not prohibitively expensive or complicated to open a supplementary school,' says Robert Whelan. 'However, we are concerned by what appears to be an attempt by the government to get control of the supplementary schools movement by means of one of its quangos.'

The report in Civitas Review describes how ContinYou, a charity that receives most of its funding from the government, has absorbed the Resource Unit for Supplementary and Mother Tongue Schools, which has produced a 'Quality Framework'. This framework has been used in a trial inspection of supplementary schools in six London boroughs. As might be expected, it encourages a high level of bureaucracy. To achieve the 'gold standard', a supplementary school must conduct an 'evaluation' to compare itself with other schools; must be able to show it has policies on public liability, child protection, health and safety and equal opportunities; and have a committee that meets at least once a term and keeps minutes.

These paper targets, which have nothing to do with the quality of teaching, are reminiscent of the bureaucratic straightjacket that OFSTED has used to control full-time schools, to damaging effect. If the ContinYou exercise is intended to bring supplementary schools under the control of OFSTED, or to establish ContinYou as the inspection agency for supplementary schools, it would threaten the spontaneity and diversity which are the strengths of the supplementary school sector.

The Civitas Review essay places this urge to control supplementary schools with the ever-present desire on the part of government to control everything:

'This government, like most governments, regards the voluntary and charitable sector as something to be, if not absorbed or incorporated, at least organised. Governments look out over chaos and wish to regularise and bring order. They do not like the random, transient, associative nature of civil society… Government regulation would bring a premature end to a new and exciting development in civil society. We should do all that we can to make sure this does not happen.' (p.14)

For more information contact:

Robert Whelan 020 7799 6677

• Full Report (PDF)