The Free Schools experience.

Paul Atherton's picture
 285
Over the last 18 months, I've been watching the involvement and engagement of the free schools process and I've been so encouraged by the people involved, that I genuinely believe it can do nothing but good.

Many of the arguments on this site seem to focus on the fact that LA Schools could be improved.

But that seems to miss the point.

The Free School (dare I call it) movement. Seems to be more about engagement by parents & community than an LA School could ever achieve.

This, in main of course, has been highlighted by the Governments push to keep the idea in the media and the high profile types who've been the initial founders (e.g. Katharine Birbalsingh & Toby Young).

In addition to the freedom this type of school offers to parents, pupils and teachers alike.

But I think Free Schools like Academies before them force communities to think about education in a different way to the existing LA system.

I was brought into Bexley Business Academy as it transferred from a failing school to an Academy. And what was noticeable was not the exam results but the complete turn around of attitude from the pupils.

They wanted to be in the school (truancy was at an all time high previously), were filled with aspiration (most students came from backgrounds where there expectations of future progression were kept low) and could generally engage with all the new facilities that were offered to them (there was much wrong too - I was brought in because, they'd had an entire TV Studio installed but nobody had been taught how to use it).

This may not have translated into exam results but anecdotally at least, translated into more well rounded, positive children joining society than the schools previous incarnation.

I think what Toby Young says in the we produced Free Schools video about Working Class parents wanting the best for their children, is reflected in his schools intake and why I think this is genuinely a good thing for UK society.
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Comments

Guest's picture
Tue, 13/03/2012 - 17:43

Please read comment on this thread that states 67% of parents want choice. Did you miss or choose to ignore that statistic?


Guest's picture
Tue, 13/03/2012 - 17:47

Sarah,

What your survey states is that majority of parents want choice. Addittionally they all want a great local school, don't we all. Unfortunately there are not enough to go around, hence Gove's excellent policies.

Sarah's picture
Tue, 13/03/2012 - 19:09

Guest - this is a misrepresentation of what the survey concludes. What it says, in addition to 80% of parents believing their child should go to the nearest school, is that parents should have a basic right to choose which school their child attends. And under the existing state education system they do - they can express a preference for any school and if there is a place available their child can go there. It doesn't say that parents expect to have unfettered choice and indeed other research by the same person indicates that parents expect their choice to to be balanced with the impact on others - ie there needs to be a balance between choice and social justice. This is what the free school policy gets so wrong. It creates far too much emphasis on parental choice and far too little on social justice.

There are plenty of excellent schools around in the maintained sector - and free schools are often being created in places surrounded by other good schools. I think you've bought into Gove's rhetoric about a broken education system when this is simply not the case.

There is a huge difference between giving parents the opportunity for their child to attend a good school and expecting parents to be able to have an automatic place at the 'best' school in the area, or the option to create a new school at enormous public cost if they can't have what they want. Raising parental expectations around choice has been a huge mistake in my opinion - far better to encourage parents to support and improve their local school.

Janet Downs's picture
Wed, 14/03/2012 - 07:32

Thanks, Sarah, for making it absolutely clear what the survey found. The question asked respondents to agree or disagree whether parents had the right to choose a school. The majority said yes - parents did have the right to choose. This did not imply, as Guest suggests, that parents wanted more choice. As you rightly point out, the survey also found that respondents thought choice was not a priority.


Ben Taylor's picture
Wed, 14/03/2012 - 10:15

Sarah would you say that a woman's right to choose childbirth is conditional on whether her preference can be met according to only the resources of the local NHS services? There are of course many people waiting to adopt, perhaps in order to balance social justice she should expect to perhaps be fettered. Should she be encouraged to give up a child for adoption?

I am making a point about what choice means in morality and law.

Sarah's picture
Wed, 14/03/2012 - 16:51

I see the argument you are attempting to make - but the parallel is a poor one. Having a child isn't something which any society can guarantee, the choice is already fettered by biology. Having a child educated is something which a society can guarantee - but the issue is how scarce public resources are rationed in making provision available to all children. No parent can be provided with unfettered choice because that would mean many others being provided with no choice at all. I think choice is a red herring actually. If all schools were equally good nobody would even be talking about choice. So the task of government is to ensure that all schools are as good as they can be - not keep providing a more and more bewildering and expensive array of choices.


Ricky-Tarr's picture
Wed, 14/03/2012 - 11:37

I am a parent and I most certainly DO want choice. The reason is that I have a number of different children who show signs of needing quite different styles of education. One is an academic high-achiever who needs an environment with high academic expectations and constant challenge - otherwise boredom (and I fear eventual disengagement) sets in. Another child needs quite a different type of school - a shyer, more sensitive, artistically-inclined and not conventionally academic person, this child needs a more relaxed environment with an emphasis on creative expression and development, much more pastoral care and an unintimidating/uncompetitive environment. Our third would most probably prosper just about anywhere, but has strong views herself about insisting on a small, single-sex school. (The problem is that the only such place is a faith school - of a different denomination, and is heavily oversubscribed.)

Ideally, all schools would have good behaviour records.

Actually what I have by way of choice are a series of overly large community schools and academies, all of which have crap discipline, low academic standards and poor pastoral support. I see their students slouching around in a pastiche of school uniform, behaving in a loud, foul-mouthed and coarse manner in surrounding streets, and I hear from other parents that gangs, knives and drugs are a problem in the playground of at least one of them.
No thanks.

Fiona Millar's picture
Wed, 14/03/2012 - 11:40

Have you actually been inside these schools to see for yourself what is going on or are you relying on the views of other parents and impressions of pupils on the street?


Allan Beavis's picture
Wed, 14/03/2012 - 12:40

I think Ricky’s wish list here illustrates how the government’s pushing of the choice agenda raises expectations that are unrealistic and impossible to meet. Is it really possible for any community – rural or city – to provide the three different types of schools virtually tailor made for the abilities and personalities of Ricky’s own three children, all within reasonable travelling distance of his home? And how do we set the boundaries of what choice constitutes in the make up of a school? For another family, the three choices Ricky offered to Ricky would not be suitable for their entirely specific needs, so more “choice” would have to be created to satisfy those specific demands.

Where is the money to build and open all these schools in all communities up and down the country? With so much choice and specialisation pandering to individual and selfish demands, there would be thousands of schools half empty. Surplus schools.

Ricky is even unsatisfied with a choice between Academies and Community Schools, both of which he criticises. I doubt whether any school would be compatible with his ideal for each of his three children. And as the local Academy would good enough for some but not for Ricky, so would the Krisha-Avanti Free School be for a minority in Edgware but not for a family wanting the choice of Vedic teaching but living in Somerset?

Foul-mouthed, drug taking kids armed with weapons don’t just populate inner city run down schools, Ricky. You can find them in Eton as well.

Ricky-Tarr's picture
Wed, 14/03/2012 - 12:40

Fiona, I have been inside one of them.... but in connection with another matter (i.e. not as a prospective parent). I observed a couple of lessons, talked to staff and spent most of a day with one of the SLT.
I wasn't too impressed. Teaching seemed formulaic: all three part lessons with most time spent in seemingly fruitless activities, short plenaries. No clearly stated learning objectives. In short, the kids produced a poster, but actually learned next to nothing.
More depressing - that was regarded as okay because as one teacher said: "research has shown that anything we did teach is likely to be obsolete by the time they leave school anyway".
The first twelve minutes of one lesson was a prolonged negotiation between a teacher and a girl who wouldn't take off her coat. It was a shame, because the teacher had planned a really dramatic opener to the lesson, but it rather depended on getting straight into it and the business with the coat made it alll fall flat.

Ricky-Tarr's picture
Wed, 14/03/2012 - 13:32

Actually Allan, the neighbouring borough of Wandsworth does have schools that would certainly meet our needs for the two older children - and maybe all three. If I lived anywhere close to Barnet, friends tell me, there would be no problem there either. Two out of three would mostly likely be the score in Westminster, Kensington & Chelsea and Hammersmith & Fulham too - if you cont in the voluntary-aided schools.
Which may explain why > 60% of Lambeth resident secondary school kids travel outside the borough. And it may explain too why so many parents locally supported Birbalsingh' s efforts to change the landscape locally. which sadly didn't come off because the council drove her over the Wandsworth border. The problem is that Wandsworth schools are now getting so popular they are shrinking their catchments. If Wandsworth sees big population rises in the coming years, they may no longer be willing/able to cope with thousand of Lambeth refugees. What then, if not free schools or decent academy chains?

Allan Beavis's picture
Wed, 14/03/2012 - 12:42

Have you considered having your children home tutored?


Fiona Millar's picture
Wed, 14/03/2012 - 13:51

Can I ask how you can be so sure that free schools won't face the same challenges or indeed be perceived in the same way as you perceive these schools? After all once upon a time academies were going to be the answer to the problems you seem to feel you have in your local area although they are now ( according to your comments) being dismissed along with the local community schools.

I think it is very likely that in ten years time, people will be making similar criticisms of some free schools , especially if they do insist on appointing amateurs to teach. How can you be so sure that Katharine Birbalsingh's school will be any different? It doesn't even have a site yet! I would suggest that a simpler, more cost effective way of dealing with these issues, whether real or perceived, is to improve the existing provision, if that is needed. There is nothing you have described in your wishlist of the perfect local school mix that can't be achieved within one good comprehensive school with strong leadership, high expectations, a balanced intake and a curriculum that meets every child's needs.

Allan Beavis's picture
Wed, 14/03/2012 - 14:46

You still don't address the issue of choice though. Wandsworth and Lambeth need more schools, so would it not be more cost effective, as well as fair, to have all these new schools accessible and inviting to all children, not just some? You are focusing on the particular needs of your own three children and have expressed dissatisfaction with both community and Academy schools, suggesting that what you want is three different types of school in your catchment area suitable for your children. What about other children in the area? You are not even satisfied with an Academy, but a "decent" Academy, so by this I suppose you mean an Academy that is not failing or blighted with knives like any old comprehensive?

I think the reason that Birbalsingh strikes a chord is that her rhetoric and lambast have played on the fears and prejudices of many people, with the result that her public relations has managed to spin an image of a messianic woman with a mission. They quite forget - or do not know - that her track record is not particularly distinguished and that many many teachers and headteachers up and down the country have improved schools without the need to self publicise or align themselves with the policies of the incoming government to secure employment for themselves.

What you yearn for and describe is a good local school. If you wish this to be a democratic provision for everyone and not just the articulate and sharp elbowed few, perhaps you would support the view that the sparse resources left should be be shared equally amongst all schools and not just be given to a number of expensive Free Schools open to very few children just because this is Gove's ideology?

Ricky-Tarr's picture
Wed, 14/03/2012 - 14:05

Fiona

What do you mean by "a balanced intake"?

Ricky-Tarr's picture
Wed, 14/03/2012 - 14:52

I dare say some free schools won't work out so well - that's the price you pay for the advantages of innovation. But better some innovation/experimentation than staying stuck in a rut.

I think where I don't agree with you is that you believe that diversity/pluralism of provision is possible under one big comprehensive roof, whereas I think that diversity/pluralism is better supplied by a range of autonomous schools, each with its own distinctive character/ethos/style.

I'm also puzzled by how you get a "balanced intake" (thanks for the clarification) if you put total emphasis on local/nearest etc.

In many areas going LOCAL would lead to both social segregation (middle class school for middle class neighbourhood; working class school local to the big social housing concentration) and to a large extent segregation by ability/prior achievement (kids who had tutoring/did Kumon; kids who didn't).

Having a variety of schools matching different sorts of preferences, but with wide catchments and open to all would surely produce more balanced intakes - socially + ability?

Ricky-Tarr's picture
Wed, 14/03/2012 - 15:08

Allan


You ask:

"would it not be more cost effective, as well as fair, to have all these new schools accessible and inviting to all children, not just some? "

But free schools are open to all, as I understand it. They seem jolly keen to sign up parents from far and wide and WLFS had a 3 mile catchment. Surely it's the LOCAL school that (implicity) is fostering geographical apartheid?

You also refer to:

..."a number of expensive Free Schools open to very few children.."

But they are cheaper, not expensive. In London, a new secondary typically costs around £30m, while a free school is more like £15-20m.

And they are open to just as many children (WLFS & Bolingbroke both have 4 FE don't they?)

I really don't get this characterization of free schools as serving the few not the many.
It's just a a new way of opening a new school - the chief difference being that the parent promotors and teachers get to specify what the school will be like, rather than council stooges.

Paul Atherton's picture
Wed, 14/03/2012 - 15:57

Ricky,

That was extremely eloquently put.

I agree, that this notion of fairness, that opponents endeavour to suggest is their primary motivator, is so distant from reality, one may consider that they have never left the comfort of their homes.

As you rightly say, this is an innovative, cheap (remember all this money is currently being taken from a pot, which had already been spent in real terms on the BSF project), attempt to redress the balance of the current failings in certain areas.

It seems all the supporters of this idea seem to be excited by the chance to make a change for all children's education, by offering a wide array of educational establishments - whilst those against, seem only to want LA control for it's own end.

There's something reminiscent about the way some African children value education in the Free Schools movement. A belief that education is the most important thing you can impart to a child. Which doesn't rely on expensive buildings or petty politics but on the needs of the child's education in whatever way that is best imparted.

Nice points made by Sam, Guest & Ben as well. Great to see some reasoned arguments on both sides, coming through.

Paul Atherton's picture
Thu, 15/03/2012 - 09:31

Ricky,

Excellently well put sir. I'd say that ends the argument on all counts:)

Fiona Millar's picture
Wed, 14/03/2012 - 14:11

A balanced spread of ability .


Allan Beavis's picture
Wed, 14/03/2012 - 16:12

Ricky -

Its simple. Free Schools serve the few because the £15-£20m that each one receives to educate a minuscule number of children, when the education budget has been slashed by 60%, is better spent on expanding provision and resources of existing schools. When community schools are being deliberately run down by the government, their funds squeezed and vital services slashed or cancelled in ways that hit the most vulnerable children in favour of financing schools that serve the most selfish - in your words "parent promotors and teachers get to specify what the school will be like" - then it is clear that Free Schools are not going to benefit most children in the country or even to contribute to raising the educational standards of this country. All this means is, like some charter chains in the US, some kids do well at WLFS and Bolingbroke but how has this policy scaled up in any meaningful way to all schools in the country? Your argument suggests that, so long as your kids are alright, you can ignore the rest. I wonder also how things will pan out when, after the initial impetus to set up a Free School has passed into the control and infrastructure of an edu chain, parents and teachers see their "vision" distorted by the financial and ideological conditioning of the chain? I suspect many will hanker after the good old days when they had recourse to much more fairness and accountability and long for being able to call up a "council stooge" who, as we know, never controls local schools but oversees them.

A guest's picture
Wed, 14/03/2012 - 16:59

The cost of free schools and Academies is not fully known. I think it is premature to say they are a cheaper option.


Guest's picture
Wed, 14/03/2012 - 17:29

Allan,

The education budget has not been slashed by 60%.
Free schools offer fantastic value compared to cost of schools under BSF or when previously built through local councils.
In areas like Lambeth a new school for £20 million would be fantastic value!
Fiona - your idea for having a balanced intake could never work if you expect people to support their local school. Could you explain how it would work whilst at same time supporting the principles of this site.

Allan Beavis's picture
Wed, 14/03/2012 - 17:44

Guest -

Has it not? Where is your evidence for this or are you just cherry picking from no evidence, as is your habit?

Education for 16-19-year-olds and for “early years” – nursery pupils and playgroups – will be hit most hard, with spending cuts of around 20%. School and college building projects will suffer the most from cuts to funding, these budgets to be slashed by 60%.

In the meantime, a £20m for one school does not therefore represent fantastic value if you are one of the majority of schools having to cut essential provisions.

You will probably leap in now with the argument over the increase in the pupil premium – the £488 given to schools for each pupil eligible for free school meals – over the next three years. This amount does not begin to address the shortfall. If you want the evidence that is out there in the public domain I suggest you waste your own time rather than mine and research it yourself.

http://www.localschoolsnetwork.org.uk/2011/10/under-the-coalition-worse-...

Sarah's picture
Wed, 14/03/2012 - 18:38

Capital allocations to local authorities have indeed been cut across the board by 60%. Capital allocations to individual schools have been cut by even more - 80%. There is absolutely no evidence whatoever that free school buildings will be cheaper than any other form of procurement. Much of the cost of BSF was the front end procurement cost - the government never actually allowed it to proceed long enough to take advantage of any savings that might have accrued from the use of Local Education Partnerships. Local authorities have procured new schools outside of BSF without having to use these heavily centralised procurement mechanisms and there's no evidence that any free school would have been more expensive procured traditionally by a local authority.


Guest's picture
Wed, 14/03/2012 - 17:54

Allan,

You made the claim that the education budget had been slashed by 60%
Evidence please.

Ricky-Tarr's picture
Wed, 14/03/2012 - 19:01

Allan


This is tosh and you know it. The schools budget was ring-fenced in the original cuts and the IFS forecast for 2015 was for schools (up to KS4) to have an average cut of 1%, but for this to be more than offset in deprived areas by the pupil premium. Accordingly, schools in deprived areas will have increased resources between now and 2015, while other schools will have a tiny cut of 1% that would be within the margin of contingency in any properly run organization and for which tiny efficiency improvements should easily compensate.

Nor does the capital spending on free schools go on educating 'a miniscule number of children' - these schools will have around 700 pupils when full.

howard's picture
Wed, 14/03/2012 - 23:01

Both Ricky and Sarah are correct with regard to the funding. The schools (revenue) budget has been protected in that in the 2010 Comprehensive Spending Review, when the funding for the pupil premium is taken into account, the total schools (revenue) budget was forecast to increase in line with the then estimates of inflation over the course of the CSR period. In contrast, the Department's capital budget, including its schools capital funds, was reduced by 60%. Cuts to the amount of money given to schools as Devolved Formula Capital were reduced by even more as funds were diverted to other priorities, including providing additional school places and the capital costs of establishing free schools. Since the CSR inflation estimates have increased, so the schools (revenue) budget is likely to suffer a small real-terms decrease in its value, while the government has found some extra capital money for the Department.


Allan Beavis's picture
Wed, 14/03/2012 - 18:41

I've already replied to that in my last comment and given you more stats. I hope you understand the difference between capital costs and running costs and will therefore be able to apply this knowledge to the (capital) costs of setting up Free Schools? I didn't think I needed to point this out in my original comment but perhaps I needed to state the obvious for you lest you thought you could sniff out an advantage?

Perhaps you can finally offer some evidence of your own? Would you like to show us how the government is increasing provision for all schools?

Allan Beavis's picture
Wed, 14/03/2012 - 19:12

Ricky -

Really? In the immortal words of "guest" - evidence please?

700 when full. I see. And just how many Free Schools are there? What is their percentage compared to non-Free School? Evidence that it is not minuscule please

Paul Atherton's picture
Thu, 15/03/2012 - 09:39

So to clarify Howard, the Education Budget has only been cut by 1 or 2%, 2010/11 against 2011/12?


Ricky-Tarr's picture
Thu, 15/03/2012 - 10:12

Allan Beavis

It appears that whenever you are caught out spouting nonsense, you reflexively cry out for evidence.

As Howard has shown, the facts of the 2010 Comprehensive Spending Review are hardly a state secret - they are plain to see on the Treasury website and the Hansard accounts of the man debates about this matter in both houses of Parliament.

As for the 1% projected cut in the schools revenue budget - my source is the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

Yes indeed Sarah is right to say there was a substantial cut in the capital funding going to local authorities - but that seems fair and reasonable given the fact that local authorities will no longer be (primarily) the promoters of new schools or responsible for funding them.

In any case, my nearest secondary (Stockwell Park) has just completed refurbishments costing > £25 million. Yes - refurbishments to an existing school cost more than wholly new schools are costing under the free schools policy.

I still do not understand your obsession with "miniscule" numbers. WLFS & Bolingbroke both appear to be operating on the basis of annual admissions of around 120 pupils. That's smaller than some schools, but larger than others. So the free secondaries we know about appear to be pretty average - not serving a 'miniscule' number at all. You seem to be shifting the goalposts now by asking what percentage of the total school population will free school pupils represent. Who knows? Who cares? The free school system is merely an 'opening mechanism' for an academy. I'd guess about 80-100 per year will open over the next few years.

The point is that they are currently cheaper to open than schools were under BSF or direct LA procurement in the old days.

Paul Atherton's picture
Fri, 16/03/2012 - 08:36

Alan, You're the only one here trying to impose an ideology on others I'm afraid.


Allan Beavis's picture
Fri, 16/03/2012 - 01:04

Ricky –

Your IFS Source is which one? “Trends in education and school spending”, published in October 2011? You’ve read it then? If so, you will have understood that the report concludes that “Having risen by historically large amounts during the 2000s, the UK’s education budget is now set for an historically large fall over the next few years” and that public spending on education in the UK “is set to fall at the fastest rate since at least the 1950s.”

You produced as “evidence” that the IFS forecast only a 1% cut in the schools revenue budget but this is to grossly misrepresent both the IFS and the actual education cuts crisis.

The 1% cut refers only to the smallest real-term cuts. Capital spending is more than halved. Spending on the early years and youth services is expected to be cut by over 20% in real terms in total. Planned cuts to 16–19 education spending are likely to be of a similar magnitude.

As for the pupil premium, the report states that only the most deprived schools are likely to see real-terms increases in funding per pupil in 2011–12. Although spending on the pupil premium will grow to £2.5 billion by 2014–15, given the continued freeze in other per-pupil spending this pattern looks set to continue up to 2014–15.

Schools’ specific costs will increase by 1.8% in 2011–12, as compared with 2.9% for economy-wide inflation However, even taking account of this, the majority of schools are still expected to see real-terms cuts in 2011–12. This pattern is likely to continue through to 2014–15 as well.

You can read a summary here http://www.ifs.org.uk/pr/bn121_pr.pdf

Let’s move on to the injustice of huge capital spending for free schools teaching a minuscule number of children in comparison with non-Free Schools.

Why is the coalition devoting a large proportion of the massively depleted capital budget to free schools, rather than targeting the pressing need to expand, improve or repair existing schools? The first 24 new free schools, which opened last September, cost around £130m. Only 15 of them were in areas where there was a need for new places. £600m has been earmarked for building new free schools in the next two years. Most will be secondaries, yet official figures from last July showed that the number of children of nursery and primary school age in England is due to rise by 14% between 2010 and 2018. From a low point of 3.95 million in 2009, the number of primary-school-age children is projected to rise to 4.51 million in 2018. This increase of more than half a million will take the primary school population to its highest level since the late 1970s.

How many of these primary Free Schools will be meeting basic demand for new places? Surely the overriding factor in determining which new schools are built should be basic demographic need?

It’s all to do with Gove’s ideology..He promotes free schools by dazzling the gullible with the chimera of “competition” and “choice” because they are a distraction from the real agenda of handing state schools over to be exploited for financial gain by for-profit companies. But this can only be achieved if they are opened in areas where there is surplus capacity, since no spare places means no parental choice. So, should he increase school choice, or meet basic demand?

Instead of being a responsible caretaker of the future education of this country’s children by ensuring every child has a school place in a system of uniformly good schools, he has jeopardised their future by choosing instead to arrogantly drive through his favourite and misguided policy, whose only real guarantee of success lies in profits to shareholders of education companies.

Allan Beavis's picture
Fri, 16/03/2012 - 01:09

Paul

If you need clarifying why don't you actually read the IFS report yourself and put the 1% cut in context? The report concluded that the coalition cuts to education are the biggest since the 1950s. When the future is so bleak for schools overall, why would you care so long as your self serving needs are met in the "community" on which you will impose your ideology?

Allan Beavis's picture
Fri, 16/03/2012 - 12:25

Paul

No I am not. I am also not the Secretary for Education who has the power to impose and is imposing ideology. I think even the Tories would not dispute this.

Sarah's picture
Wed, 14/03/2012 - 17:05

It's far too early to conclude that free schools are cheaper than other sorts of schools because the government has been exceptionally cagey about how much will ultimately be spent on individual free schools. In many cases they are being established in temporary accommodation pending the acquisition and adaptation of a permanent site - these temporary arrangements have a cost but we are not allowed to know what it is as the DfE will not respond to FOI requests about these projects. Yes, BSF was expensive - most local authorities have been able to build new schools for less. There's nothing magical about free schools that make them cheaper - simply a relaxation of the standards which school buildings should comply with eg the area reduction for secondary schools of 15% less space and doing away with the requirement to achieve a BREEAM very good rating (known to increase costs by up to 10%). So if they are cheaper it's because they are poorer quality, less green or smaller not because anyone's been smarter!

The capital cost of a school is one thing - the revenue costs something else again. Some of these free schools are very small - it will inevitably mean that the per pupil costs will be higher than larger schools. Running several small schools is a far more expensive model than running one larger school - local authorities in Birmingham are now having to look to 6FE primaries as a way of providing enough primary pupil places because it's cheaper than building and running additional primary schools.

As for whether a single comprehensive school can meet the varying needs of different sorts of children - you only have to look to the health sector for an answer to this. Nobody would argue that a good model for specialist health care would be to have lots and lots of small specialist hospitals. The large District General Hospital serving the complex and varied needs of a community across quite a wide area is a tried and tested model for health - there is no clamour to allow patients to set up their own small eye hospital in an empty warehouse just so that patients can have choice, that would be a ludicrously expensive and inefficient use of resources. Such is the free schools policy.

Janet Downs's picture
Wed, 14/03/2012 - 17:35

£600 million has been allocated to the Free Schools programme according to Rachel Wolf of the New Schools Network in a rapturous eulogy she wrote for the TES. (Oh, Brave New World, that has such schools in't!". Ms Wolf thinks it is marvellous that all new schools must be forced by law to be free schools or academies. She thinks that ionly groups who propose free schools will "improve education". In saying this, she insults the thousands of teachers who work at the chalkface for years doing exactly that - educating children to the best of their ability, only to have people with no experience of teaching coming along and telling them that really they're not good enough and we amateurs can do better especially if we amateurs once advised the Secretary of State and can now make a nice living out of pushing a particular policy.

And we mustn't forget those middle-ranking teachers who lobby for a new school which they will then lead - rapid promotion, higher salary.

In high-performing countries, like Finland, all teachers are expected to deal with all types of children. The schools are inclusive, as OECD has found (and I have mentioned many times). In England, there is much talk about "choice" but OECD found that the evidence linking user choice to educational performance is mixed and therefore inconclusive. Recent research from Harvard looked at the literature around user choice and found it had, at best, a modest impact on student achievement: "This suggests that competition alone is unlikely to significantly increase the efficiency of the public school system."

http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=6179249

http://www.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/fryer/files/effective_schools.pdf

Paul Atherton's picture
Thu, 15/03/2012 - 11:05

Actually Sarah, the specialist health care model works exactly the way you say it doesn't.

General means exactly that - general. It doesn't cater for specialisms.

So, we do have specialist Eye Hospitals (Moorfields), Children's Hospitals (Guys), Mental Hospitals (Maudsley) etc.

But further than that we have G.P.'s opticians and dentists on every major high street, utilising small space for specialisms to give greater and more appropriate choices

E.G. Chinese medicine stores, Homeopathic health centres, Physiotherapists, Osteopaths, Massage centres for those not buying into the drug culture - all of which is paid for by the NHS in part or in whole.

And all of which driven by patient choice.

If anything, your health example, would actually make the case for Free Schools.

Paul Atherton's picture
Thu, 15/03/2012 - 10:02

Janet,

I agree that the Harvard study clearly explains the lack of evidential research done on public schools, in the USA and as you rightly point out, cannot draw any comparisons to Charter Schools to assess which, if either, has the most positive impact

Are you aware of any UK studies that address the failings within the research parameters of the Harvard one? Perhaps an LSE one?

The OECD actually says this

“User choice remains relatively limited for students from disadvantaged backgrounds, as admission criteria by residence limit choice geographically. Although user choice reforms can have positive effects, they could potentially lead to increased segregation. The government should therefore experiment with proscribing the use of residence criteria in admission to local government maintained schools in some local authorities and evaluate the effects carefully.”
http://fullfact.org/factchecks/oecd_mail_spectator_schools_standards-2572

Which is something I would wholeheartedly agree with and in fact makes Ricky's point about Local and segregation.

Sarah's picture
Thu, 15/03/2012 - 18:45

Are you seriously suggesting that a general hospital doesn't cater for specialisms. Try telling that to a gynaecologist, a neurologist or a paediatrician. And within the teaching profession there is far less diversity of practice than in your average hospital. It's certainly possible for a comprehensive school to cater for the different needs of pupils in mainstream education.

The whole debate on the NHS tells you that patients, like parents, are far less interested in choice and far more interested in just having free and fair access to a good local service. And they don't want it in the hands of profiteers either.

Janet Downs's picture
Thu, 15/03/2012 - 10:34

Paul - Thank you for providing another quote from the OECD which says that "user choice... could potentially lead to increased segregation."

It will be many years before the "user choice" promoted by this Government is seen to have any impact, positively or negatively, on educational outcomes in England as a whole. It is, therefore, too early to do research on the consequences of increased user choice which in any case will only occur in areas where there is a sufficient number of schools. No-one has yet been able to explain how user choice would work in rurual areas where there is an insufficient number of children to support enough schools within reasonable travelling distance to allow for choice.

In theory, parents can apply for places in other areas - geographical distance only comes into play when a school is oversubscribed. And there is a tension between geographical distance and "fair banding" if a school uses this system. The National Audit Office 2010, while agreeing with the principle of fair banding, warned that it could "in theory reduce the extent to which a school serves its immediate area (another key tenet of the academies policy), since local children may be refused a place in favour of those from further afield who match the required profile."

However, you are right to be concerned about increased segregation. The last Government allowed schools to select 10% of pupils on "aptitude". This should be stopped. And there has been an increase in the number of faith schools many of which have admission policies that make it clear that children from families of other faiths or none come quite low in the admission criteria.

And, of course, many of the proposed free schools are supported by faith groups. This has the potential to increase segregation further.

Paul Atherton's picture
Thu, 15/03/2012 - 19:12

No. What did I say? I said "...it doesn't cater for specialisms" not that there are not specialists within them and made the point that there are specialist hospitals and went onto list them.

Not as we both know, was that the point. Which you have in fact sidetracked completely.

The point being, that patients don't fit a one size fits all ideal - as per examples of non-drug based treatments now available because of patient choice, that you would have struggled to even dream of getting on the NHS 20 years ago and would have only accessed, if you could have afforded to pay for them.

And, that you can indeed get a large bureaucratic machine like the NHS to allow small organisations to flourish with new ideas under it's auspices.

So your argument falls flat.

The point being, there is a myriad ways of teaching, in a myriad of subjects and things we haven't even considered or tried.

People are getting engaged, communities are getting engaged and I struggle to understand why that's not a good thing?

And the one thing everyone is agreed on, is that there is no one size fits all ideal for anything (look at how many people on this site alone, are so encouraged by it, myself included) - nor has there ever been, but people didn't previously have the opportunity of exploring their choices and that has to be for the betterment of all.

This

Paul Atherton's picture
Thu, 15/03/2012 - 10:47

Janet I can do selective editing too - look you said

"Paul – Thank you... you are right"

Ricky-Tarr's picture
Thu, 15/03/2012 - 11:23

Janet

It looks to me as if faith schools that are voluntary aided can give priority to their own faith/denomination for 100% of their places; but faith schools that are free schools can only give such priority for 50% of places. Surely that means that free schools do not (as you put it) "have the potential to increase segregation further" but actually decrease segregation (assuming that the faith-pupils at a free school would have gone to a faith school of their own denomination had the free school not existed).

Sarah's picture
Thu, 15/03/2012 - 20:58

Whilst we may all agree that one size rarely fits all we must also all agree that public services funded by taxation cannot ever satisfy everyone's demands. There has always to be a mechanism for rationing the use of scarce resources. So public services will always have to be a compromise between the needs of the individual and the ability of state funding to meet them. The cost of the free school policy is disproportionate to the needs of those it is attempting to meet, which could be met for more cost effectively in another way. One must always consider the opportunity cost of any policy - what else could that money be better spent on. I think that the money being thrown at the free school policy would be far better spent on supporting improvements in existing schools and providing extra school places where strategic planning has demonstrated robustly that they are needed and not pursuing some half baked vanity project of the Secretary of State with the collusion of self-interested profiteers and wannabee executive heads who often don't have the experience one would normally demand from a headteacher.

Look outside of London - there are lots of places where there is not and never will be any choice of provision because the population is too small and the distances between communities too great. There is no great clamour there for choice - many simply concentrate on getting the best result possible (academically, socially and in any other way) that they can for their children from the educational provision available. What are the 'choice' supporters going to do about the large rural swathes of England? Open secondary schools with 50 pupils in? We already have a situation where there is criticism when the cost per pupil varies from school to school and area to area - Gove has considered trying to eradicate such differences. But in a system where you allow half empty or very small schools to operate this is the absolutely inevitable consequence.
How can we afford this - and why would we even consider such an inefficient system when it has yet to be proved it is any more effective than the existing one?

Paul Atherton's picture
Fri, 16/03/2012 - 06:49

We all agree that one size doesn't fit all then.

But it doesn't follow that taxation cannot fund everybodies needs.

That premise only functions if there is no change in public sector delivery, If people are determined to think that you have to curtail things because of money & that the need to hold onto systems is greater than the need to improve the betterment of society.

I work in the creative industries and specifically film. If our starting point was our budgets, we'd never make one

In the same way as intelligent people, who work out the costs of a bringing up a child, would never start a family.

It makes no economic sense.

Thankfully, in both scenarios, nobody pays any attention to the money. They both figure the money will look after itself, which invariably, it always does.

They simply pursue the goal and make whatever money they have match their needs. They come up with inventive & creative ways to achieve their objectives.

The old adage of "neccesity is the mother of invention" never had more significance.

You've said numerous times (as you do here), that there isn't sufficient evidence to draw any conclusions about the costs of Free Schools, so it seems strange then, that you seem to be suggesting:

"The cost of the free school policy is disproportionate to the needs of those it is attempting to meet, which could be met for more cost effectively in another way."

The evidence we have to date, would obviously contest that:

A) It's cheaper to buy a new school than improve an old one.

B) The delivery mechanisms of council's are politically corrupted and ludicrously inefficient (letting down over 26,000 children in one year, in London alone).

We've all made the argument that a lot of parents don't get choice, and are enforced to endure whatever offering is presented to them.

But why not a school with just 50 students? That's how my school started, in an old farm building.

It grew to be the most respected Grammar school in Wales, with the best teachers in the UK clambering to teach there.

All, of course, until it became a comprehensive, at which point it disintegrated into the worst kind of sink estate school.

Thankfully though, the new teachers, realised how to deal with this and threw out the curriculum and taught life skills, rather than teaching a rigorously academic sylabus.

The school went from putting aproximately 80% of it's graduates to University down to aproximately 5%.

But the pupils who were leaving without qualifications, had at least been educated with the skills to survive on their own.

Those with aspirations to improve their academic abilities knew they just had to get through to 6th form, to have their opportunity to shine.

Why do you conclude that in a small school, the obvious consequence will be, that the cost per child will increase?

You've not proved any inefficiency in a new system - but what you appear to be saying is "better the devil we now" as opposed to my view which is "better the angel we don't"

Janet Downs's picture
Thu, 15/03/2012 - 09:53

Paul - in answer to your 9.16 am comment (there's no reply option) so my response will appear at the bottom of the thread. I refer you to the Civil Service Code of Practice (first link below). Among other things it imposes responsibilities concerning impartiality and objectivity. One rule is that civil servants must not "ignore inconvenient facts or relevant considerations when providing advice or making decisions". This rule should also apply to politicians.

In September, a survey showed there had been a crisis in morale at the DfE since the Coalition came to power with civil servants being shunted from their previous responsibilities to deal with the free school/academy conversion policies. When they provided evidence which as civil servants they are required to do impartially, this was ignored (see second link below).

And then there are the "special advisors" who are not impartial but forcibly promote Coalition policies, sometimes laughably so such as the claim that academy conversion turned round more schools than there were academies (third link below), or when some twonk tweeted that Channel 4 endorsed academies when they had done the opposite (fourth link below).

http://www.civilservice.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/civil-service-...

http://www.localschoolsnetwork.org.uk/2011/09/crisis-of-confidence-at-df...

http://www.localschoolsnetwork.org.uk/2012/02/academy-conversion-%e2%80%...

http://www.localschoolsnetwork.org.uk/2012/01/academies-raise-standards-...

Paul Atherton's picture
Thu, 15/03/2012 - 10:28

I'm not sure of your point here Janet.

We'd addressed what the Civil Service were supposed to do in the thread, proved that they didn't necessarily do it and therefore proved we couldn't conclude their motivations one way or the other.

I'm not sure I understand your point about Politicians either, politicians make crap up all the time, we all know that, so, what's your point.... Politicians don't run Civil Service departments, Civil Servants do???:))

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-17370260

Janet Downs's picture
Thu, 15/03/2012 - 10:43

Paul - you are so right that "politicians make crap up all the time". That's why it's important to expose them when they do especially when their policies rest on the piles of ordure they produce and when their special advisors buzz around like bluebottles spreading the muck over a wide area.


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