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| AdminHistory | In 1959 Michael Duane was appointed the Head of Risinghill School in Islington, London. The new secondary comprehensive school was the amalgamation of four other schools. The children included nineteen different nationalities and came from a variety of backgrounds and abilities. Duane attempted to implement a programme of pastoral care, pupil democracy, frank sexual education, close cooperation with parents, reformative rather than punitive discipline (strictly non-corporal), promotion of creativity and multi-culturalism. The School was faced with problems caused by the lack of staff and the poor structure of the building. Duane also refused to expel any pupils as, since education had been made compulsory, he thought expulsion was illegal
Duane's policies clashed with those of the LCC District Inspector, Mr MacGowan, who promoted the use of corporal punishment. In 1962 the school was involved in controversy over an account of Duane's sex education lessons [published anonymously by Duane in Family Planning 11, no. 2 (1961)]. The school also received a hostile inspection report which criticized Duane's policies and recommended the reintroduction of corporal punishment and expulsion, but Duane refused to do so. The School received another critical school inspection in 1964 and in early 1965 the decision was made to close Risinghill.
In July 1965 the School was closed, and the grounds were used to relocate the girls' Starcross School (which had been displaced from its own grounds to make way for Kingsway Further Education College), which later became the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson School. |