Dear Secretary of State,

The Prince of Wales has asked me to ensure that you received a copy of the recently published feasibility study which examined the future potential development of the Prince of Wales Education Summer Schools, and to which your department kindly contributed funding. I submitted a copy previously, but in addition to the further enclosed copy, I wanted to include a copy of an Executive Summary, prepared for His Royal Highness, which tells the story of the paper and sets out three options for moving the project forward.
 You will note that these consist of:

* a proposal to create a new Prince of Wales Educational charity which would be charged with delivering a new teacher training initiative or “institute”

* a proposal to create a new partnership with a UK university, using the Business in the Environment arrangement at Cambridge as a possible model

* a proposal to develop an initiative under the auspices of an existing Education charity such as Teach First

                

After recent discussion, our preferred route  to is to develop the idea of a partnership and to being drawing together criteria for such an arrangement which would maintain the ethos of the current Education Summer Schools whilst broadening and deepening its impact around the country. We would intend to stage a residential event at Dartington Hall, Devon (the venue for the first school three years ago) in June 2005, which would act as a “launch” platform for further activity including the creation of an alumni association, a series of half-day or one-day events and other elements, all of which would fall into the category of Continuing Professional Development. It might be that School-Centred Initial Teacher Training activity could also be developed as part of that initiative.

If the partnership idea were to fail, then we would move to the option of creating a new charity. Clearly, the principle challenges associated with each option are securing appropriate funding and appointing a Director with appropriate support staff, before too long.

I know that The Prince of Wales would be keen to know your views on the enclosed findings, but in the meantime, this comes from His Royal Highness’s warmest good wishes.

Yours sincerely

Charles