Why isn’t there a group for parents?

Whenever I see a period drama or any show set in before the 1980s and somebody goes travelling I can’t help looking at their luggage. Suitcases were big rectangular blocks of colour and none of them had wheels. We didn’t have a retractable handle until 1987 and this was over a decade after somebody realized that two wheels were better than none. 

Sometimes we don’t know what would be a good idea until somebody points it out. When they do, we all wonder why the hell we all hadn’t thought of it ages ago.   

These were all good ideas in the independent school space: in 1869 the Heads of leading independent senior schools set up HMC, the Girls’ Schools Association followed 5 years later and the Prep Schools' group was formed in 1892. Bursars got a representative body in 1932. Not long after wheels were fitted to the first suitcase ISC started coordinating them.  As recently as 2002 a group was created for governors so at last all the independent school bases were covered.

Or were they?  

Nobody asked the question, why isn’t there a group to represent the parents?

Later in November, 156 years after the first independent school association met the first national association for parents will be announced.  It is not-for-profit, unaffiliated to political parties, it has no shareholders and aims to support and inform families in the sector. It isn’t a lobby group, it isn’t a think tank, it isn’t funded by schools. It’s all about parents, it’s run by parents and it’s for parents. Simple. 

I wonder why we didn’t think about it ages ago. 

Peter Hogan