Meet the Parents is a pioneering scheme to give primary school parents the inside story on their local secondary schools. We arrange for families from the local comprehensives to come into feeder primaries and talk frankly about their experience at school. It fills a gap between slick open days and age-old rumours in the playground.

In the seven years that we’ve been running the scheme in Camden in North London, we have won over scores of parents to staying local rather than sending their children to schools outside the area. Each child brings a boost to the secondary schools’ budgets and strengthens the local community.

We highly value the work of Meet the Parents, which helps local parents get a fuller picture of what our secondary schools can offer their children.

Meet the Parents is a brilliant initiative, which should help applicants to state secondary schools feel more confident about what they would be experiencing as students in those schools. As part of a comprehensive-educated dynasty, I hope it becomes part of the fabric of the education system.