Pupils 'should be sent to private instead of free schools'

Leading headteacher suggests private schools already fulfil role set out for free schools

Ministers should abandon the idea of free schools and encourage parents to send their children to private schools instead, a leading headteacher will say today.

Andy Falconer, the new chair of the Independent Association of Preparatory Schools (IAPS), said the government's plans for free schools "reinvented the wheel".

Free schools, founded by parents, teachers and private firms, are a flagship government policy inspired by similar initiatives in Sweden and the United States.

Earlier this month, the education secretary, Michael Gove, gave 16 schools initial approval. Ministers hope at least some will be ready to open by next September. The schools will be run as academies, independent of local authority control.

But speaking at the IAPS annual conference in London today, Falconer will say that private schools already perform the role that ministers want for free schools.

"Many of us in the independent sector have remarked on the similarity between our schools and the Department for Education's vision for new free schools," the headteacher of St Olave's school in York will say.

"One of the reasons I feel that there has been a slow take-up on the introduction of free schools is that once people really start to look at how much it takes to be truly independent, to have no back up or safety net from the local authority or the government, then they start to glimpse the enormity of the challenge ahead."

Falconer, whose association represents more than 500 schools in the UK, will call on the government to give parents the amount it costs to educate their child through primary school – £6,000 – and allow them to choose the school they wish. He will say that parents should be able to supplement the sum if they want to educate children in the private sector.

"Why exactly is our government investing time and money in free schools when the concept of schools which are independent of government control alaredy exists?," he will say. "Surely widening access to our schools would do so much more than trying to reinvent the wheel. We already accept the reality of private health care, with the NHS using private hospitals to deliver some of its services. Why then could a similar process not take place in the education system?"

This would widen access to private schools and "give the system the freedom to which our government aspires," he will argue.

Meanwhile, the proportion of pupils attending independent schools has risen by 0.5% this year despite the economic climate, a poll shows.

The Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference – a coalition of private schools including Eton and Harrow – quizzed 117 of its schools on their admissions statistics.

The figures show that the total number of pupils is up by 0.5% compared with this time last year. The proportion of pupils starting aged 11 has grown by 2%, while at the age of 13 and 16, it has risen by 4.4% and 6.3% respectively.

The proportion of pupils who were withdrawn from schools for financial reasons was the same as last year – 0.6%.

Jessica Shepherd
guardian.co.uk News Mon 27 Sep 2010 10:38 BST
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Safe schools 'will cost billions'

At least £15bn is needed over the next four years to ensure structurally sound classrooms for all England's children, research suggests.


The government scrapped Labour's £45bn school building programme in July, saying it was wasteful.

The estimate is based on a survey of 40% of councils, with the results scaled up to represent all 152.

It is part of the Local Government Association's submission to the government's review of spending.

The Department for Education says it will set out plans for capital spending on schools after the comprehensive spending review on 20 October.

It has also launched a review into school building, chaired by Sebastian James of the Dixons group.

The survey was carried out jointly by the Local Government Association (LGA) and the Association of Directors of Children's Services (ADCS).

The two groups say it shows that £15bn in the period leading up to 2015 is the minimum investment considered essential by local authorities, to ensure that every child can be taught in a classroom which is safe and structurally sound.

They say that beyond the bare minimum - a wider total of £29.3bn is required.

The figures form part of the LGA's submissions to the comprehensive spending review and the James review.

"Everyone is well aware of the difficult financial climate in which councils are operating," said Baroness Margaret Eaton, Chairman of the LGA.

"We need to work even harder to ensure that the money that is invested in school buildings represents the best possible value for the taxpayer."

Marion Davis, President of ADCS, said the survey showed there was an urgent need for continued investment in school building.

'Red tape'

A spokesman for the Department for Education said: "We're clear that all future capital investment needs to go where it is needed most. Ministers want to target schools in most disrepair far better and deal with the urgent demand for primary school places - a problem we cannot afford to ignore."

The spokesman said all future investment must be "realistic and affordable, offer far greater value-for-money, and have far less red tape and bureaucracy".

Some 700 planned building projects were put on hold when the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) scheme was scrapped in July.

BSF was a sweeping plan to rebuild every secondary school in England.

Under it many ambitious, architect-designed premises were developed in consultation with schools.

But critics said it was overly bureaucratic and poor value for money.

Its initial budget of £45bn was later revised upwards to £55bn.


However, the cancellations were met with anger, partly because many projects had already involved costly and time-consuming planning.

Some were in dilapidated schools and institutions which relied on temporary classrooms.

The LGA has estimated that £203m has been spent by councils on BSF projects which were cancelled.

Ministers want to target schools in most disrepair far better and deal with the urgent demand for primary school places - a problem we cannot afford to ignore.

There was also anger sparked by mistakes in the list of cancelled building projects.

BBC 24/09/10 http://bbc.in/cFkDeN

Coalition plan to slash school bureaucracy

Controversial rules forcing schools to rate pupils and teachers are being scrapped under Government plans to cut red tape.

The Coalition said self-evaluation forms – documents often stretching to more than 100 pages – will be axed to allow schools to concentrate on teaching.

Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, insisted that the Government had to "trust teachers to get on with their job".

The move comes just months after the Coalition scrapped the General Teaching Council for England - the teaching profession's regulatory body.

Self-evaluation forms were introduced by Labour in 2005. Head teachers must update the documents every year in a move designed to aid the Ofsted inspection process.

Currently, schools must answer around 100 separate questions and show how they meet dozens of other legal requirements.

On a four-point scale they are forced to rate "the extent to which pupils adopt healthy lifestyles", how safe pupils feel, the effectiveness of the school's "engagement with parents" and how well the school "promotes community cohesion".

In another question, schools are told to rate their ability to promote equal opportunities and tackle discrimination.

Other sections of the form order schools to count the number of computers in classrooms, list the number of technicians and teaching assistants and confirm that they abide by health and safety, race relations and gender equality legislation.

Mr Gove has now written to Ofsted ordering the watchdog to ditch the form.

He said: "The Coalition government trusts teachers to get on with their job. That's why we are taking steps to reduce the bureaucracy they face and giving them the powers they need to do a good job. We believe that teachers – not bureaucrats and politicians – should run schools."

The move was welcomed by teachers.

Kate Dethridge, head of Churchend Primary School in Reading, said: "Removing the SEF will free up huge amounts of time – many heads spend most of their summer holidays updating the SEF, then you would need at least two or three senior management meetings to discuss it."

Amanda Whittingham, assistant head of Wensley Fold School, Blackburn, said: "Just to update the SEF took up two full days of work for the head, deputy and a paid external consultant brought in as an expert on filling in the SEF."

Russell Hobby, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, said "This is good news. It will result in more self evaluation and more meaningful self evaluation, a process which is at the heart of school improvement.

"NAHT welcomes the removal of the bureaucratic, form filling one-size-fits-all approach. It is now up to schools and groups of schools to develop their own models of self evaluation, which suit their own needs and context; models which stimulate the deep reflection, challenge and learning which the profession is longing for."

By Graeme Paton, Education Editor Telegraph http://bit.ly/bSZIDH

UK and American school reforms: who is copying whom?

Mike Baker The Guardian Comment Mon 20 Sep 2010 http://bit.ly/cmWV4T

The US and the UK are copying each other school reforms, but they focus too heavily on measuring achievement

Nothing captures the flavour of the new school year in the US like the opening game of the high school football season – American football, of course, not the Limey version.

Last week, I joined the enthusiastic parents in the stands at Dexter high school in Michigan. This was only the "freshman" team (14- to 15-year-olds) but it still merited the full razzmatazz: a floodlit stadium, cheerleaders, electronic scoreboard, loudspeaker commentary, fussy referees in regulation striped shirts, and two teams of professionally uniformed, helmeted and shoulder-padded footballers.

It was a timeless ritual, one repeated at schools across the country for generations, as over 50 million children returned to the nation's 130,000 schools this month. But behind this tableau of stability, American schools are changing. And there are fascinating parallels with the reforms taking place in England.

For the US is going through the same navel-gazing crises familiar this side of the Atlantic: concern that the nation's educational performance is falling behind other countries, and growing frustration that successive school reforms have failed to narrow the achievement gap between rich and poor.

The trend in US education policy is towards "school choice". This is about increasing school autonomy and injecting market forces into a monolithic system in which schools were run by the states and districts, and almost every child attended their nearest elementary or high school.

Over the last 20 years or so, schools have gained freedoms and parents offered choices between schools within and beyond their local school district. Additionally, there are now more than 5,000 charter schools, serving 1.5 million pupils, which lie outside the traditional school districts.

Charter schools are new schools, initiated by parents, teachers or other groups, funded by the taxpayer, free to pupils, but autonomous from the traditional school authorities.

In short, they are one of the models for Michael Gove's "free schools", the main difference being that in the American model the charter, or funding agreement, is granted locally, not by central government. The Americans would never countenance giving central government the powers Gove now has over "free schools".

Like the proposed 16 "free schools" due to open in England over the next year, charter schools come in all shapes and sizes, with different educational philosophies.

In the 20 years since the first charter school legislation was passed in Minnesota, there have been some successes and some failures. Charters are generally popular with parents and their numbers have grown steadily, although two decades on, they still serve less than 3% of the school population, or about the same number as are home-schooled.

There have been numerous studies on the impact of charter schools and, to put it simply, they provide no definitive proof that they have raised standards overall. This is not very encouraging for the "free schools" here. Will we, in 20 years' time, still be looking for evidence that they have made a difference?

In fairness to the charter school movement, it joins a succession of school reforms, including George W Bush's No Child Left Behind programme, which have yet to show definitive improvements. That could be because these reforms have tended to focus on structural reform, or on assessment and monitoring, but not on the core of what happens in the classroom: the curriculum and teaching methods.

So attention is now focused on President Obama's Race to the Top programme. This involves a massive $4.3bn (£2.7bn) fund being distributed to individual states in return for competitive bids to improve educational performance. To get the money, states have to prove their plans will meet four aims: developing tough academic standards or targets for what pupils should achieve, building data systems that measure pupil progress, improving the professional development and evaluation of teachers, and turning around the lowest-achieving schools.

There is a strong echo of Tony Blair's school reforms in this programme. It suggests that, although Obama is continuing with the "school choice" reforms of his predecessor, he also sees central government intervention as the way forward.

But while the focus on teacher quality is new and encouraging, the emphasis is still very much on setting targets, and measuring achievement, rather than on curriculum innovation. It seems the UK and the US are copying each other's school reforms, each pushing market-based reforms, backed by targets and carrot-and-stick data gathering, but not fundamentally changing what happens in the classroom.

www.mikebakereducation.co.uk

'Why we're starting our own school'

Dismayed by lack of choice, London parent Penny Roberts will open one of the first 'free' primaries. But there'll be no place for elitism, she tells Jerome Taylor


When Penny Roberts began looking at primary schools for her eldest daughter Bethany she realised that almost all the other mothers she had met through maternity classes and playgroups had moved out of London. "None of them ever intended to leave but suddenly their children got to the age of two or three and they panicked," she recalls. "People are terrified because there's such a lack of choice. So they move out of the city."

This year the borough has received 1,678 applications for 1,598 places. Over the next decade Camden will need between 60 and 120 new primary school places each year if it is to meet projected population growth for the area. The Government hopes that one of the answers to such shortages of school places will lie in their flagship "free" school policy. Charities, businesses, parent and teacher groups have all expressed interest in setting up this new genre of state school, which will be outside local authority control and will have much greater leeway in what, and how, they teach.

Roberts – who worked as an educational psychologist before becoming a mother to Bethany, 9, and six-year-old Ellie – is in charge of a group of parents and teachers who have submitted an application to the Department of Education to set up a primary school in the basement of St Luke's church, a gently evangelical church in Hampstead with a broadly young, middle-class congregation. On Monday, St Luke's was told it would become one of the first "free" schools to be established under the Education Secretary Michael Gove's programme. It was one of 16 to be given the go-ahead to set up from next September.

"We're absolutely delighted; it has been a real community effort," Roberts says. "People are elated, but we realise this is just the start not the end. There's a lot of hard work ahead of us but hopefully our community will finally get the school it desperately needs."

The campaigners are anxious to stress that the school will be open to all-comers. "We see this as a natural extension of our community involvement," says Dan Wells, a former teacher who is now the assistant minister at St Luke's. "The Church of England has a great heritage of being involved in education and we see this as a way to continue to give to our community and be involved in the local area."

Critics of the free-school programme say it will reinforce a two-tier education system, with pushy middle-class parents far more likely to set up schools than those living in areas of social deprivation where better schools are desperately needed. Detractors also say religious groups and private schools will be the first to jump on the free-school model because they already have the know-how, experience and resources. They believe their fears were reinforced with the announcement of the first 16 schools, five of which were faith schools (two Jewish, one Hindu and one Sikh in addition to St Luke's).

Aware that his flagship education policy could be derided as something that will only benefit the middle classes and the religious, Mr Gove is said to have told civil servants to hold back all but the most exceptional applications from faith groups that applied to be part of the September 2011 tranche.

Under current policy guidelines, which could of course change over the coming months, any faith group that wants to set up a free school will also have to reserve 50 per cent of its places to students of different faiths or no faith at all.

During the election campaign, the Conservatives said they hoped 3,000 free schools would be opened over the next 10 years, creating 220,000 new places with plans for 20,985 places in the first year of government alone. But budget restrictions now make those figures look hugely optimistic even though Mr Gove stressed the 16 were just the start of a programme which would be rolled out over the coming months. He told the BBC's Andrew Marr Show that there had been 700 enquiries about opening free schools, 100 of which had led to applications being made to the Department of Education. Education officials are expecting a further 50 free schools to open in 2012, and 100 the following year.

This week's announcement had the secularists up in arms. Andrew Copson, chief executive of the British Humanist Association, believes free schools will allow religious communities to set "unregulated faith schools" and says the Government must resist the temptation to reduce the 50 per cent quota. "[Free schools] will give [religious groups] complete power over the curriculum while unburdening them from the need to raise their own funds," he says. "Very few parents have the time, resources or local influence to set up a new school, but religious groups often have all of these." He adds: "While the 50 per cent rule for free schools doesn't go nearly far enough, it is at least an indication that Mr Gove believes religious discrimination should be curbed. By contrast, the recent lobbying campaign by religious groups demonstrates that many support segregation over inclusion. Mr Gove should cease trying to appease the religious lobby and instead use his powers to introduce open admissions policies for all schools."

In the case of St Luke's, Mrs Roberts says they will aim to have more than 50 per cent of their pupils from other faiths or no faith at all. "We want the school to be one that serves its community," she explains. "We will make it clear in our admissions policy that the children who come to the school will be local children. We certainly won't be encouraging a row of 4x4s from across the borough. This area is a lot more mixed than you might think."

Leah Pettingell hopes to send her daughter to St Luke's if it is given the go-ahead. The Australian-born former primary teacher already takes her one-year-old, Jemimah, to the church playgroup and says mothers of all different faiths are excited by the idea of having a desperately needed new school.

"The playgroup is just a regular playgroup," she says. "Christians run it but they're not on a mission, they're simply there to help out. I went to an evangelical Christian school. There were positive and negatives. We want to bring up Jemimah so that she knows what Christianity is about, but we see that as our responsibility."

There is, however, disquiet within the Jewish community over the current guidelines. The Jewish Board of Deputies has written to its members to ask them to lobby the Government and change the 50 per cent quota. Jon Benjamin, chief executive of the Board of Deputies, says: "Unfortunately it looks like free schools are not going to be the panacea Jewish parents thought they would be. This has been a bombshell for parents who had hoped to be able to set up new schools for Jewish children quickly."

But Adam Dawson, a 34-year-old barrister who runs the Mill Hill Jewish Primary School group – another given the go-ahead this week – said he would still press ahead with plans for a free school even if the 50 per cent quota isn't lifted.

"The concept of free schools is very attractive, but the 50 per cent quota could create difficulties," he says. "Our view is that it's not an absolute no, but we would need to find out more about how it will all work."

Different class: Other free schools

Five faith schools, two run by a charity set up by hedge-fund millionaires and one promoting teaching methods that would have had Charles Dickens's Mr Gradgrind turning in his grave. This is the new vision of schooling to be gleaned from the make-up of the first 16 independent "free" schools given the go-ahead by the Education Secretary, Michael Gove. Apart from St Luke's, the Church of England school in Camden, north London, the other 15 are:

Bedford and Kempston Free School

A proposal for an 11-to-16 secondary set up by teachers. They say they will concentrate on the "Stem" subjects (science, technology, engineering and maths) and set as their target every child achieving at least a C in maths and English.

The Childcare Company, Slough

A proposal to establish a primary school and attached nursery with a Christian ethos. Its director Sally Eaton is a former school inspector.

Discovery New School, West Sussex

This will be the first state-funded primary school to adopt the Montessori teaching methods, which teach the whole child and put less of an emphasis on preparing pupils for tests and exams.

The Free School, Norwich

A plan by teachers to establish an all-year-round extended school offering childcare facilities after school.

Haringey Jewish Primary School

A school for five- to 11-year-olds in Muswell Hill. It has a large Jewish community. It says it will be open to all Jewish denominations and non-Jews.

I–Foundation Primary School, Leicester

This will be the second Hindu primary school in the country to be funded by the state. (The first is in Hendon.) The school will have "a Hindu ethos and cater for pupils from all communities".

King's Science Academy, Bradford

This is being set up by the son of a local bus driver, Sajid Hussain. The scheme aims to lure the brightest graduates into teaching.

Mill Hill Jewish Primary School, north London

The second Jewish school for five- to 11-year-olds. The school will have a Jewish ethos. The group proposing it are still considering their admissions arrangements. Mr Gove wants all "free" faith schools to offer 50 per cent of places to non-faith applicants.

Nishkam Education Trust, Birmingham

This will be the first all-through Sikh state school to be established in the UK

North Westminster Free School (ARK), London

This is the first of two to be run by the Ark education charity, set up by the hedge-fund millionaire Arpad "Arki" Busson. It will be for three- to 11-year-olds.

Priors Marston and Priors Hardwick school, Warwickshire

Again a school with a Christian ethos, this primary already exists and is run through private donations after the local authority insisted it should close.

Rivendale First School, Hammersmith and Fulham

A primary school which states that it will have no religious ethos and offer an alternative to existing faith schools in the area.

Stour Valley Community School, Suffolk

An 11-to-16 school being set up by parents opposed to the closure of a local middle school.

West London Free School, Acton

Being set up by a group of parents headed by the writer and broadcaster Toby Young, it is a secondary school with an emphasis on the classics.

Wormholt North Hammersmith Free School (to be known as Burlington Primary Academy)

The second primary school being planned by the Ark academy.

The Independent
Thursday, 9 September 2010
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Enfield's top primary school, Cuckoo Hall, in Edmonton, opens as one of Government's academies

AN "outstanding" Enfield school was among only seven of the Government's new-style primary academies to open this week.

The former Cuckoo Hall Primary School, in Cuckoo Hall Lane, Edmonton, was granted the special status by education secretary Michael Gove after meeting the criteria.

It means the primary school is no longer under the control of Enfield Council, and will manage its own budget using funds received directly from central Government.

Local authorities on average keep eight per cent or more of the funds they receive for schools in their area to support central services such as school buses.

Academies do not have to contribute to this, meaning it can channel the money to fund other projects. Headteacher Patricia Sowter said the the extra sum could amount to as much as £200,000 a year.

Ms Sowter said: "This is a real opportunity for our school, our children and our community.

"We will be able to reach more children and make a bigger difference to education in this area. We are an inclusive school and that will not change.

"These new academy freedoms mean we now have the flexibility to adapt and extend the curriculum, target more resources more effectively, use specialist staff and build a school infrastructure to ensure continued and long-term outstanding educational provision for our community".

Ms Sowter said the school would continue to work with neighbouring primaries and not "in isolation".

Cuckoo Hall was judged outstanding by the Government's education watchdog Ofsted in May 2009 and won approval to change to academy status by Mr Gove in June 2010.

Enfield Independent 06/09/10
http://bit.ly/brWWl5
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Enfield's top primary school, Cuckoo Hall, in Edmonton, opens as one of Government's academies

AN "outstanding" Enfield school was among only seven of the Government's new-style primary academies to open this week.

The former Cuckoo Hall Primary School, in Cuckoo Hall Lane, Edmonton, was granted the special status by education secretary Michael Gove after meeting the criteria.

It means the primary school is no longer under the control of Enfield Council, and will manage its own budget using funds received directly from central Government.

Local authorities on average keep eight per cent or more of the funds they receive for schools in their area to support central services such as school buses.

Academies do not have to contribute to this, meaning it can channel the money to fund other projects. Headteacher Patricia Sowter said the the extra sum could amount to as much as £200,000 a year.

Ms Sowter said: "This is a real opportunity for our school, our children and our community.

"We will be able to reach more children and make a bigger difference to education in this area. We are an inclusive school and that will not change.

"These new academy freedoms mean we now have the flexibility to adapt and extend the curriculum, target more resources more effectively, use specialist staff and build a school infrastructure to ensure continued and long-term outstanding educational provision for our community".

Ms Sowter said the school would continue to work with neighbouring primaries and not "in isolation".

Cuckoo Hall was judged outstanding by the Government's education watchdog Ofsted in May 2009 and won approval to change to academy status by Mr Gove in June 2010.

Enfield Independent 06/09/10
http://bit.ly/brWWl5
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