Brown and Cameron both opt for state schools

Published on Friday 9 May 2008 22:17

GORDON Brown, the Prime Minister, and David Cameron, the Conservative leader, have chosen to send their four-year-old children to state-run schools.

Mr Brown's eldest son, John, will attend Millbank primary school, near Downing Street, from September.

Mr Cameron's daughter, Nancy, has been given a place at St Mary Abbots Church of England school in Kensington, close to the family home in Notting Hill, London.

Both schools were said to be the first choice of the parents.

Mr Brown and Mr Cameron are following the example of Tony Blair, the former prime minister who sent his three older children to a Catholic state primary in Islington – though Mr Blair later sparked controversy when he rejected state-run secondary schools in the borough and sent them to west London schools.

Millbank primary is described as a model of high achievement in an underprivileged area, with half its pupils receiving free school meals and pupils speaking 24 languages.

It is believed to be the closest non-faith school to 10 Downing Street.

A friend of Mr Brown's wife, Sarah, said: "It's a great school with a great headmistress and it's very close to Downing Street. It's near where John goes to nursery so some of his friends will also be going there."

St Mary Abbots is tucked away behind affluent Kensington High Street and was chosen in preference to around a dozen closer alternatives.

Ofsted inspectors said it had the atmosphere of a village school. Its results make it massively over-subscribed.