School choice is extremely emotive. Last year, before my GS’s parents had even stated their choices, work began on a new Academy school only minutes down the road from where they live. It fed all sorts of fears and insecurities in the parents at GS’s school, who immediately thought that they would automatically be included in its catchment and not that of their desired school. There was a rash of applications to sit the entrance exam for nearby private schools, and several people putting their houses up for sale to move nearer the secondary school of choice (an expensive option but not as expensive as private education). The head of the existing secondary assured parents that there would be sufficient places for all pupils from its feeder schools, and so it has proved. The new school’s facilities and equipment will be enviable and absolutely state of the art; the school day will be longer than most other local authority schools, and the ethos statement, on paper at least, is praiseworthy. Reading it, who would not want to get their child in there? But the thing that worried the parents was that it would have no proven track record. It has a huge catchment area, but the initial intake will consist of 120 year 7 pupils who, it was felt, will effectively be guinea pigs. And no one seemed to be prepared to make that leap of faith.