When Ofsted inspectors go to Holland Park school, west London, next month, they will be adjudicating between warring factions fighting for the soul of an historic, emblematic comprehensive.
On one side is the young and ambitious head teacher, Colin Hall, backed by the Conservative leadership of Kensington and Chelsea borough council and most of the school's governing body, and determined to drag the school kicking and screaming into the prime minister's "post-comprehensive" era.
On the other is a vocal parents' lobby and increasingly agitated group of teachers. "The transformation of Holland Park school from an open, consensual society to a closed authoritarian one is the state of Blair's Britain writ small: the same touchy-feely word spinning, the same ruthless crushing of opposition, the same vapid corporatism," said parent Neil Ferguson, a former student at the school.
"The school has no values or ideology - it is driven by the vanity and ambition of its leader. The school that they want is the school the Tory governors want. They want selection of sorts, they want a uniform, they want better exam results. If you change the intake you'll get better exam results. It's not to say it's a better school."
Founded in 1958, Holland Park was Britain's first purpose-built comprehensive. Few other schools are on a site worth as much, a few streets west of Kensington Palace, part of which is being sold to developers to fund a £25m rebuild. And perhaps no other state school has a comparable roll call of famous visitors (Nelson Mandela, Bill Gates, Tony Blair, John Major) or famous parents (John Huston, Bob Monkhouse, Paul Raymond, the Marquess of Queensberry, Roy Jenkins, Shirley Williams, and Tony Benn).
"Holland Park typifies comprehensive schools about as well as Marie Antoinette's 'farm' at Versailles typified life on a farm for a French peasant," a letter to the Daily Telegraph once claimed. From the 1960s onwards, Holland Park was associated with a free-wheeling, multi-cultural progressivism - the kind of place where a certain kind of teacher wanted to work with both serious inner-city challenges and Oxbridge entrants.
The Tory-controlled borough has long felt uncomfortable about the school's image and the school has not been immune to changing educational trends. But the changes made by Mr Hall since he became head two years ago are the most far-reaching and controversial the school has known. Critics acknowledge he is an expert salesman and is "phenomenally driven".
Banding
Setting by ability was introduced from entry year onwards in English, maths and science. From 2004, the school will introduce "banding" for admissions, taking 25% of its entrants from the top ability band, 50% from the middle, and 25% from the bottom. Opponents are divided on how important a move this is, but some believe the net effect will be to cut the number of low-achieving children from primaries in the north of the borough.
Mr Hall has introduced prizegiving ceremonies and spent money on dinners and brainstorming awaydays for staff. The school has been given a designer makeover and a new motto: "Seeking genius in people". An elegant new prospectus promotes the school and its head teacher in virtually equal measure.
The results this year - 38% of students achieving five Cs or better at GCSE - are its best ever. The school is heavily oversubscribed. But a culture of resistance to change was identified among some staff by consultants brought in by the school.
Many long-standing senior teachers have quit. The NUT, the dominant union at the school with 85 members, has threatened to strike over the withdrawal of teacher "facility time". Six staff resigned from the special needs department amid bitter disputes. "I felt increasingly demoralised by a loss of confidence in the integrity of the school with regard to [special needs] students," a teacher wrote to Sarah Macdonald, chair of governors. Recently 22 teachers signed a letter protesting at having to fill in a lengthy form to apply for £900 government-funded retention payments, requiring them to show how they work to support "the ethos and development of the school".
Last year, the school gave the money to "staff who shared the joint commitment of the governing body and the leadership group," wrote governor John Baker. "This was a policy intended to discriminate in favour of those who espouse the changes we are seeking to make, and who are, therefore, likely to contribute to the success of the school."
Lately, teachers and some parents insist, discipline has started to break down. Full-time security guards arrived on site last week, the police presence in the school has been stepped up, and the NUT has requested a special meeting with Mr Hall to find solutions to escalating bad behaviour.
Some teachers claim that fights between pupils have taken on an ethnic dimension for the first time, though other staff deny that. "At the moment, there are five or six serious fights a week," said one teacher. "One parent said to me her daughter didn't want to come to school because she was sick of seeing blood every day." The parents' body, the Holland Park School Community Association, passed a vote of no confidence in Mr Hall last year at a meeting attended by 52 parents. The association claims to have been isolated by the school's leadership. A campaign last summer over proposals - later dropped - to scrap Arabic in the sixth form has contributed to a new sensitivity about race.
Some parents complained when the hall was decorated in white for an awards ceremony under the theme of "purity" - inappropriate, they said, for a school with such an ethnic mix. The school's leadership insisted no offence was meant.
The exact scale of the discontent among parents and staff is hard to gauge, but it is at least a substantial, destabilising minority. In a brief early conversation with the Guardian, Mr Hall referred to a "small minority of teachers and parents".
All critical teachers and parents - with the exception of Mr Ferguson - have refused to speak to this paper on the record. The Guardian's request to visit the school and interview Mr Hall was referred to the council after an eight-day delay. This week we put a series of questions to the council, which said it would not answer them until the half-term break was over.
Both sides are eyeing Ofsted's arrival expectantly but also nervously. The inspection will allow parents to have their say, and some staff hope that Ofsted will hasten Mr Hall's departure, though he appears to have the backing of those above him.
The key facts and figures
· Holland Park, founded in 1958, has 1,800 pupils.
· Its last Ofsted report said that 58% of students spoke English as an additional language, covering more than 100 nationalities, including 300 refugees or asylum seekers.
· Half the students are on free school meals.
· Holland Park is one of only four state secondary schools in the borough. The other three are Roman Catholic.
· Just 27% of the borough's primary children go on to its state secondary schools, and relatively few come to Holland Park from its immediate surroundings.
