Dear Secretary of State,

If you can bear to receive a report on this year’s Education Summer School from someone with such old-fashioned views (!), I particularly wanted to express my gratitude to you for your continuing support of this venture which, as you will recall, was held in Buzton at the end of June. Judging by the structured feed-back and reporting by the teachers delegates, they all got a great deal out of the event and, by all accounts, are applying some of the elements learned in their own classrooms
 Quite apart from the impact of the third of my Summer Schools, I do hope that you have had the opportunity to read some of the Feasibility Study which my office sent to you recently and which I believe opens the way towards the creation of a teacher training institute. If there were issues which you felt needed greater explanation, or indeed exploration, perhaps you would kindly let me know. I need hardly add that it would be absolutely marvellous if, having contributed to the Study, you felt able to continue supporting the initiative into 2005 and beyond… But perhaps I am now too dangerous to associate with!

In the meantime, I am delighted to be able to enclose a post-course brochure, together with a copy of the Evaluation Report for the 2004 School in Buxton. Both have been compiled by the School’s Steering Group, under its Director, Bernie McCabe, and I believe they make fascinating reading. There is, I think, a very real sense that the Schools have identified a gap in the teaching of English and History and, I might add, have set about bridging it. My Summer Schools are also challenging the fashionable view that teachers should not impart bodies of knowledge, but should instead act as “facilitators” or “coaches”, a notion which I find difficult to understand, I must admit.

I very much hope that you find the reports stimulating and I do once again want to thank you most warmly for your invaluable support.

Yours most sincerely

Charles