Roedean head slams Brown for 'hostility' to fee-paying

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Frances King, of £15,750-a-year Roedean girls' school in Brighton, defended parents' right to buy a better education for their children. Gifted children are bullied because they work hard in state comprehensives, she said.

Her comments come as private schools face pressure to help educate state school pupils.

Mrs King said: "I sense that he [Gordon Brown] has got a very clear political agenda within which independent schools do not really feature ... He is coming from a clear Left approach that is about redistribution of wealth." The logical conclusion of his position would be to ban private schools, she added.

She also cited concern that pupils at independents may be disadvantaged when applying to university, after claims that some universities were under pressure to give places to stateeducated candidates to meet government targets.

New charity laws now require private schools to prove they operate for the wider "public benefit" to justify their £ 100 million- per- year tax breaks.

Mrs King said she hoped the Charity Commission would not adopt a bureaucratic approach to the laws. At a local state school, she said, "the child might have been bullied - at my school people are proud to achieve".