Our lives - now
Poor Man's Eton
Sam [text removed] is 11 and he's not quite sure where he lives. His mother is in Nigeria, and he thinks his father is too.
The only thing he knows for certain is that he goes to Woolverstone Hall - a stately mansion in Suffolk which is now a boarding school. It's not a traditional public school, but a comprehensive - and it's run, improbably, by the Inner
London Education Authority. For boys like Sam [text removed] , Woolverstone is security.
Many of the pupils here come from deprived homes and backgrounds. But it costs the authority £2 million a year to keep this unique school going.
There are only 220 pupils. It's more expensive, per child, than Eton. Now the ILEA, facing its own financial crisis, wants to close Woolverstone down.
But Headmaster Richard
Woollett is not prepared to give up without a fight.... Photography
IAN STONE. NIGEL MEAKIN
Film editor ALICE FORWARD Assistant producer ROHAN SEECOOMAR
Producer RICHARD DENTON Editor EDWARD MIRZOEFF
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