My son's progress is amazing

When Rosanna Beeby made the radical decision to spend £7,500 a year on her son's education, she hoped it would make a real difference to his progress.

And a year after moving 12-year-old James from Grey Court, a secondary comprehensive in Richmond, to the nearby independent Halliford School in Shepperton, she said: "It's the best decision we ever made.

"We are able to afford it - it hasn't meant too many sacrifices. But James's father and I both feel it's money well spent."

Throughout his primary education James attended state schools in the Richmond area.

"We were really pleased with the education he got at that level," said Ms Beeby.

It was when James began his secondary schooling at Grey Court that the problems began. "My biggest issue was that he wasn't coming home with very much homework. And there were lots of changes of teachers - in one year he had three different teachers for physics.

"There were lots of distractions in class, and I just felt James wasn't making much progress," she said.

Ms Beeby, a dental hygienist, moved her son after a year at the state senior school.

She admits she and James's father Mark Bury, director of an estate agency, were anxious that the move would disrupt her son's schooling. "But you would not believe the difference in my son in terms of maturity, enthusiasm and confidence - he was the first to speak in the school play, which is something he would never have done before.

"He's doing more work than he has ever done in his life but has had two commendations in one term.

"The other day he said: 'I've learned more in three months at Halliford than I did in a year at Grey Court'."