TUCKED away behind a dark, low-slung church lies the Independent Grammar School: Durham (IGSD). Its rooms are airy and pleasant, but plain—far from the grandeur of many private schools. If the Department for Education grants the school permission to open this September, those rooms will become the setting for a radical educational experiment. Its founders hope that IGSD will be the first in a chain of low-cost private schools. Fees for its pupils, aged at first between four and nine (and, if all goes to plan, later to 18), will be just £52 ($70) a week.

The idea is imported from the slums of the developing world, where cheap private schools have emerged in response to the failure or absence of the state, often with excellent results. James Tooley, one of IGSD’s founders and an academic at Newcastle University, who has long studied and invested in private schools in countries such as Ghana and India, believes that there is similar demand for “no frills” private education in Britain.

That might seem odd given the distinct lack of shanty towns in Durham, where local state schools provide a decent enough education free of charge. But the founders of IGSD aim to cater to parents who have been priced out of the private sector. According to the Independent Schools Council, which represents private schools, average fees among its members have risen to £17,200 a year, up from £11,300 in 2008. Over the same period the proportion of pupils in England at independent schools has fallen from 7.2% to 6.7%.

IGSD’s backers also believe there is unmet demand for a back-to-basics education. “Appropriate authority is a very important thing in a child’s life,” says Chris Gray, the school’s head teacher. The sales pitch on its website promises parents “a traditional curriculum in a traditional style”. Another unspoken selling point is the cachet of attending a private school, even a cheap one. At the moment the north-east of England has relatively few schools in the independent sector, notes Susan Hamlyn, director of the Good Schools Guide education consultancy.

But many educationalists are sceptical that IGSD’s fees of £2,700 a year will be enough. It is far less not only than the amount charged by other private schools but also than the average funding received by state schools. In 2015-16 the average primary school in England received funding of £4,900 per pupil per year, and the average secondary school £6,300, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, a think-tank. IGSD is asking parents to cough up for an education that will have a leaner budget than one they could get from the state at no cost at all.

The school’s founders are undaunted. The lack of grand facilities like swimming pools and huge sports halls will cut costs, they say, allowing the majority of fees to be spent on hiring the best teachers, who may be given a share in future profits. The school could employ fewer managers and support staff than the state sector. And although it will not be academically selective, the fees will have the effect of excluding pupils from the most deprived backgrounds, who are often the costliest for the state to teach.

Still, the experiment will be a big test of the school’s leaders. Mr Gray was previously head teacher of Grindon Hall Christian School, a role he inherited from his mother, its founder. He stepped down in 2016 following a damning official inspection, which criticised the school’s leadership and worried that “pupils show[ed] a lack of respect and tolerance towards those who belong to different faiths, cultures or communities.” Mr Gray disputes this judgment and says that during his previous 14 years as head the school was regularly given the thumbs-up by inspectors. The criticism came after the school moved from the private to the state sector in 2012, tripling its pupil roll.

The opening of IGSD has already been delayed by a year. Officials from the Department for Education are expected soon to reach a decision on whether to give it the go-ahead. The school’s founders are hopeful of being given permission, and also of further expansion. Mr Tooley’s chain in Ghana was running 35 schools four years after opening its first. The pace of growth in England will not be quite as fast, he thinks, but he is already scouting out locations for future branches.