Boris Johnson said to have praised free school, run by ex-minister’s academy chain, as “the best”

Boris Johnson is said to have described a school, set up by the Conservative peer and former education minister Lord Nash, as “the best he had ever visited”.

The statement features on the website of Pimlico Primary, in Westminster, central London. It relates to his visit to the free school with the education secretary, Gavin Williamson, last month as the Prime Minister sought to promote more free schools.

Pimlico Primary is part of Future Academies, a chain of seven schools founded and still chaired by Lord Nash, who oversees its operations with his wife, Lady Caroline. It has a traditionalist flavour, featuring compulsory Latin and a “knowledge-rich” approach to the curriculum which has included secondary-style subject teaching in its primary schools.

On its website, the school reports of the visit on the afternoon of Tuesday, September 10th: “We were honoured to have the Prime Minister and Secretary of State for Education visit Pimlico Primary on the afternoon of Tuesday 10 September.

“They were bowled over by our high-quality, knowledge-rich curricula, and our excellent teaching. Furthermore, they were astounded by the depth and breadth of the children’s knowledge.

“The Prime Minister commented that Pimlico Primary was the best school he had ever visited, and how impressed he was with the articulate, thoughtful, confident and courteous nature of our pupils.”

The visit was reported on at the time, with some headlines focusing on a warning from Johnson to the assembled “eight-year-olds” not to get drunk while at university. But the “best school” comment seems not to have featured in coverage.

Pimlico Primary is not far from the Houses of Parliament, where Johnson, on the evening after he visited this school, sought unsuccessfully to persuade MPs that there should be an early general election. Parliament was prorogued later that night, only for that to be cancelled later last month by the Supreme Court.

Pimlico Primary: background

Pimlico Primary can certainly point to an impressive Ofsted report, inspectors having graded it “outstanding” back in June 2015, just under two years after it opened. There were no points of improvement listed in the inspection report, which graded it outstanding in all areas, under the leadership of the former headteacher, Kelly Luen.

The school had had a turbulent start, however, after its first head, Annaliese Briggs, left it within weeks of it opening, and six months after it was reported that she would be taking the role despite having no teaching qualifications.

It also seems unclear whether the school has been operating to capacity. The application form which Future filled out to set it up as a free school proposed it would be a one-form entry primary, with 30 children per year group.

However, the Department for Education’s “Get Information about Schools” website lists it as having space for 420 pupils, or two classes per year group. DfE census data suggests that it has gone beyond one class in some year groups, but never filled two, with year-group sizes ranging, as of the latest official data in January this year, from 28 children to 46.

Future’s governance arrangements, and their disclosure, are also discussed in a separate story here. 

Ministers have faced controversy over preferring to visit their favoured academies and free schools over non-academies. Pimlico Primary was chosen as the launch venue for Johnson to promote the free schools policy as he sought to focus on his domestic agenda, before dashing off to the Commons.

It is unclear whether Johnson, if he did indeed make the “best school” remark at Pimlico Primary, has said it on any other school visit, or how many schools he has so far visited. He was quoted back in 2013, while London Mayor, as having said that the meals at another free school he was visiting, Reach Academy Feltham, amounted to “the best school dinner I’ve ever had”.