FAQs ON FREE SCHOOLS
SEPTEMBER 2011
Q: What are free schools?
A: Free schools are a new type of school which the Coalition Government is promoting.
Free schools are publicly funded but:
· are not part of the local authority family of schools and not subject to oversight or inspection by the local authority;
· do not have to employ qualified teachers;
· do not have to follow the National Curriculum;
· can determine their own admissions criteria;
· are unlikely to provide the same facilities as other state schools, such as halls, IT suites and outdoor play space because many they will be set up in disused buildings such as shops and offices;
· can determine their own school day and length of the term and school year;
· can set their own pay and conditions for teachers, outside of nationally negotiated agreements.
Q: Who can set up free schools?
A: An application to set up a free school can be made by any group of parents, teachers, a not for profit organisation, a charity, faith group, private company or partnership of these.
Q: How are free schools funded?
A: Free schools are funded directly by central government in the same way as for academies. This funding is taken out of the local authority’s education budget. It is obvious that free schools compete with existing schools for pupils and for funding.
Q: How will admissions be organised?
A: Free schools have to abide by the Schools’ Admissions Code. Analysis of the catchment areas of the first 24 free schools in this country demonstrates that they have a higher proportion of middle class households than the national average. It is also likely that there will be a certain amount of self selection in schools where an “academic” curriculum is emphasised. The West London Free School, for example, has made Latin compulsory and every child has to sit at least eight academic GCSEs or IGCSEs.
The Government has also said that it is considering giving priority to the children of parents who helped set up free schools.
Faith free schools are also able to select up to 50 per cent of their intake on the basis of religious belief.
Q: What premises will free schools use?
A: Free schools can set up in any type of building such as disused shops and offices. The Government has ordered a relaxation of planning laws and building regulations and local planning authorities have been asked to adopt a “positive and constructive” approach towards applications to create new schools. Partnership for Schools, the quango that used to administer the Building Schools for the Future budget for refurbishing or rebuilding existing state schools which the Government has abolished, is now helping free school groups identify and buy premises using public funds.
Q: Do free schools have to employ qualified teachers?
A: Teachers in free schools are not required to have Qualified Teacher Status (QTS), apart from the Special Educational Needs Co-ordinator and the member of staff responsible for looked after children (these two positions could be filled by the same person). Even the Head Teacher in a free school does not need to be qualified! How will free schools raise standards if they do not have to employ teachers who have been properly trained and qualified?
Q: Do free schools have to follow teachers’ national pay and conditions?
A: No. Free schools, like academies, can set their own pay and conditions for staff. It is clear that the Government wants flexibility on staff pay and is encouraging free school heads to pay what they want. If free schools don’t provide nationally agreed pay and conditions for teachers they won’t be able to attract the best staff.
Q: Do free schools have the same school day and school terms?
A: Free schools can decide on the length of their terms and the school day. Many of the first free schools have an extended school day and a longer school year. Parents with children in different schools may find their school hours and school terms are different. Teachers will be expected to work flexibly. The Chair of the Stour Valley Educational Trust, the first community-led group in England to get formal approval for plans to open a free school, has said: “People are going to have to teach two subjects and bring something else as well, whether it’s the Duke of Edinburgh award or playing the piano. We’re pushing the boundaries in terms of what teachers are asked to do.” So not only will free schools be unlikely to have qualified teachers some will also not have subject specialists. This is hardly a recipe for good teaching and learning.
Q: What accountability measures are there?
A: The Government says that all free schools will be accountable via inspections and tests and will be inspected by Ofsted.
However, it is not entirely clear what would happen if a free school was “failing” despite the Government stating that they will not “prop up” failing schools, even free schools.
Free schools are an untried and untested experiment. Do you want the government experimenting on our children?
Q: Are free schools part of the local family of schools?
A: No, free schools are stand alone independent schools. They are not accountable to the local authority even though they receive public money. Free schools can be set up without the involvement or support of the local authority which makes their role in planning school provision locally more difficult.
Q: Will free schools damage other local schools?
A: Unless free schools are in an area of growing demographic demand they could lead to the closure of existing maintained schools. Even if a local school only loses a small percentage of its students, that could have a damaging effect on its ability to provide a quality education for its remaining pupils and the more pupils it loses the less funding it will have available. Free schools may also draw away particular types of children making it more difficult for neighbouring schools to achieve a balanced intake. The ability of local authorities to plan for school places becomes impossible if free schools are allowed to set up wherever they like irrespective of local need and current provision.
Funds for free schools are only available because other schemes aimed at supporting existing state schools, such as BSF (Building Schools for the Future) and the Harnessing Technology Fund (intended to upgrade classroom technology) have been severely cut or scrapped.
Free schools will also be given a share of the revenue funding the local authority retains to spend on central services such as speech and language therapy or behaviour support to local schools, so services to schools will suffer.
Q: The Government says more choice and competition will raise standards – isn’t this true?
A: England already has a diverse schools system. There is no evidence that introducing further choice and diversity will raise standards. It is now almost universally agreed that Finland has the best education in Europe. Its school system reaches the ideal by producing both the highest standards and the best equity. There is no competition at all within the Finnish school system. Research shows that the priority for policy makers should be improving the quality of teaching. Research also shows that that the choice and diversity agenda exacerbates already existing educational inequalities.
Q: Why do some people say free schools could lead to privatisation of education?
A: Michael Gove, the Secretary of State for Education, has said that he has “no ideological objection” to private companies seeking profits from running academies and free schools. In Sweden, three quarters of free schools are run by profit-making companies. Chains are bidding to run free schools and are lobbying the Government to allow them to run schools on a profit- making basis.
The NUT, the largest teachers’ union, believes the free school policy could mark the end of locally planned and democratically accountable comprehensive education, undermining all the gains made since the 1944 Education Act in widening access for all children to high-quality education.
Q: What does the international evidence on free schools show?
A: The idea of free schools has been borrowed from Sweden, which first introduced free schools in the 1990s, and the USA, which has similar charter schools.
According to the 2009 international education survey, PISA: “Countries that create a more competitive environment in which many schools compete for students do not systematically produce better results.”
The latest edition of Research in Public Policy reviews the evidence on free schools in Sweden and concludes that, “it has not transformed the academic achievement of the country’s pupils.”
Sweden’s decline in educational attainment has been well documented since the educational reforms which introduced free schools.
The Swedish National Agency for Education (equivalent to Ofsted) found that educational attainment showed increasing differences in children’s grades linked to their parents’ educational background.
The CREDO report (Center for Research on Educational Outcomes) published by Stanford University in June 2009 is the first detailed national assessment of US charter school impacts. It covered 16 States and more than 70 per cent of the nation’s students attending charter schools. The research gauged whether students who attended charter schools fared better than if they would have attended a traditional public (state) school.
One of the conclusions was that “there is a wide variance in the quality of the nation’s several thousand charter schools, with, in aggregate, students in charter schools not faring as well as students in traditional public schools.”
Over a third of charter schools (37%) showed academic gains that were worse than their traditional public schools counterparts. Forty-six per cent of charter schools showed no significant difference.
There are also cases of charter schools operating fraudulently. A member of the Ohio General Assembly said “As lawmakers we were told that these charter schools would rescue central city children. Instead these scams diverted scarce public school dollars while leaving almost all urban children behind.”
Q: What can I do if a free school is proposed in my area?
A: Find out as much information as you can about who is behind the proposal, what type of school is being proposed and where it will be located. Try and build support for a local campaign among the parents, staff, senior leaders and governors of neighbouring schools that are likely to be affected by a new free school.
If you are an NUT member or a member of another trade union, contact the local trade union council (TUC) to ask for support in developing a campaign group. You can get the contact details for your local trades’ council secretary from the TUC at: www.tuc.org.uk or telephone 020 7636 4030.
If you are a parent or school governor and want to be put in contact with the local NUT representative to discuss organising a campaign, send your details to .