Sandwell appears to be missing out on the Governments school programme for new Free Schools & Academies, Why we don’t know.
Let’s have a look at what it’s all about; the new Governments plans will give parents, teachers and charities the chance to set up Free Schools. They will be schools within the state sector. They can be set up by teachers, parents, charities, universities or businesses. They are established in response to real demand within a local area for a greater number or variety of schools. Proposers must apply through the Department for Education, which then subjects each proposal to a rigorous approval process
Free Schools are free from local and national bureaucratic control. They have: freedom from the National Curriculum; greater control of budgets; more opportunities to work with other public and private organisations; freedom to change the length of terms and school days; and freedom from local authority control.
24 Free Schools will open this September.
The first 24 Free Schools will open this year after they reached funding agreements with the Secretary of State. Of the 24 Free Schools, 17 are primary schools, five are secondary schools and two are all-age schools. They were selected from a total of 323 applications
Please see here (DfE Press Release, 28 August 2011, link). The first 24 Free Schools are listed below:
o Aldborough E-ACT Free School, Redbridge
o All Saints Junior School, Reading
o Ark Atwood Primary Academy, Westminster
o Ark Conway Primary Academy, Hammersmith & Fulham
o Batley Grammar School, Kirklees
o Bristol Free School, Bristol
o Canary Wharf College, Tower Hamlets
o Discovery New School, West Sussex
o Eden Primary School, Haringey
o Etz Chaim Primary School, Barnet
o The Free School, Norwich, Norfolk
o Kings Science Academy, Bradford
o Krishna-Avanti Primary School, Leicester City
o Langley Hall Primary Academy, Slough
o Maharishi School, Lancashire
o Moorlands Free School, Luton
o Nishkam Free School, Birmingham
o Priors Free School, Warwickshire
o Rainbow Primary School, Bradford
o Sandbach School, Cheshire East
o St Luke’s Church Of England Primary School, Camden
o Stour Valley Community School, Suffolk
o West London Free School, Hammersmith & Fulham
o Woodpecker Hall Primary Academy, Enfield
A further 281 groups have applied to open Free Schools in September 2012.
· Fair funding. Like academies, Free Schools are funded on a comparable basis to other state-funded schools. They receive per pupil funding and the pupil premium in the same way and cannot be run on a for-profit basis
· Fair admissions. The admissions arrangements of any Free School must be fair and transparent. Free Schools are expected to be open to pupils of all abilities from the area and cannot be academically selective. Free Schools need to take part in their locally-coordinated admissions process, and so parents apply for places for their child in the same way as any other local school
· Proper accountability. Free Schools are subject to the same Ofsted inspections as all state schools and are expected to maintain the same rigorous standards. Free Schools falling below floor standards will be treated in exactly the same way as other schools
We firmly believe Sandwell needs new Academies, Free Schools
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