At this time of year, thousands of parents are waiting anxiously to learn if their child has been offered a place at a decent secondary. But thousands of others are now opting for a radical alternative…

Picture a school with no walls. At this school there are no smelly changing-rooms, no lumpy gravy, no bullies, or detentions and you can turn up to lessons in your pyjamas and Snoopy slippers if you feel like it. It’s called InterHigh – and it’s the UK’s first ever internet school, founded four years ago by former teachers Paul and Jacqui Daniell, in response to a growing demand for "more choice".

Choice is a thorny issue this month, as the annual furore over secondary school places reaches fever pitch. Anxious parents wring their hands and wait to hear whether their precious offspring have been accepted into the institution of their choice, Ofsted reports inform us that more than half of England’s secondary schools are not good enough. Frankly, it’s hardly surprising that roughly 55,000 of British children are now being home schooled. In the light of this mood of disaffection with mainstream schooling, maybe virtual schooling is the perfect solution to education in the digital age?

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