'We won the battle for a new school'

With one child nearing the end of primary school and her third just born, the choices for Yvonne Wilcox and her husband seemed stark.

The nearest comprehensive was failing and other local state schools were not an option. Like thousands of other London parents they asked themselves: should they pay a small fortune to educate their children privately? Or send them travelling hours each day to a good state school?

The choice they made was neither of these. With like-minded Dulwich parents, they decided to fight for a good, non-selective, mixed state secondary school on their doorstep. And, after a year of public meetings and petitions to Southwark council, they won.

In September, the new Charter School will take its full complement of 11- to 16-year-olds. Five years ago, for PR consultant Mrs Wilcox and her chartered surveyor husband Simon Taylor, the future did not look bright.

"We thought we would either have to pay a fortune or send our children miles to school - or move," said Mrs Wilcox.

"But we had left London once because of my husband's job and we came back. We spent 10 months in Cheltenham and found London was the place we wanted to be. It sounds bizarre when so many people are leaving London, but we liked all the things you can do here that you can't do anywhere else."