Find out more about Free Schools

Since my post about resisting the seductive elements of free schools there has been widespread interest amongst Green Party activists and others. Here are some links that will be of interest and I publish the NUT's FAQs below.

Parents Alliance for Community Schools LINK which arose out of a campaign against a free school in Hammermith and Fulham
A community campaign in Lambeth ' No to Free Schools'  LINK
The NUT pamphlet on Free Schools LINK
The Local Schools Network supporting a good local community school for every child LINK
The ATL have done some revealing research into the groups behind bids to run academies and free schools. PDF available free LINK

Q: What are free schools?

A: Free schools are a new type of school which the Coalition Government is promoting. The Government’s aim is for the first free schools to open in September 2011.

Free schools will receive state funding 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 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 will be funded directly by central government. Their funding will be based on a per pupil funding level and a pupil premium for disadvantaged pupils. It is obvious that free schools will compete with existing schools for government funding.

Q: How will admissions be organised?

A: Free schools will have to abide by the Admissions Code.  However, research from Sweden shows that more educated parents are most likely to use the free schools as they are based in rich, urban areas.  The West London Free School intends to make Latin compulsory and every child to sit at least eight academic GCSEs or IGCSEs, ensuring there will be a certain amount of self selection. The Battersea and Wandsworth Trade Union Council expressed concern that the free school being set up in Battersea would exclude pupils from the ‘wrong side of the tracks’.  It seems clear that when schools are free from local authority control, admission arrangements can be tweaked to favour more affluent pupils.                                                  

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 funds to refurbish or rebuild existing state schools, which has been abolished by the coalition Government,  is now helping free school groups identify and buy premises using state funds.

Q: Will free schools have qualified teachers?

A: The Government has said that free schools do not have to employ teachers with Qualified Teacher Status (QTS), apart from the school’s 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: Will ‘Free Schools’ have to follow Teacher’s 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 are 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: Will 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. So 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 new 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. The ability for local authorities to plan for school places becomes impossible and it is possible that schools may have to close.

   

Funds for free schools are available because other schemes 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 funding the local authority retains to spend on all schools.

Therefore, many services to schools will suffer or no longer be available.

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 do so 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.”

So what would a Green led Council do?

This speech by the new leader of Brighton and Hove Council gives a taste. It will be no easy task in the present conditions but I wish him and his team well.

Brighton & Hove will become the UK’s greenest city, the city council’s new leader Bill Randall has said.

In his first major speech since taking control, Mr Randall set out three key aims for the next four years. Apart from the ambitious eco-drive, they also comprise tackling inequality and involving residents, community and voluntary organisations in the council’s work.

He set out a plan to reduce the city’s eco footprint and set up a ‘biosphere reserve’ with neighbouring authorities – both plans backed by the business community and other public bodies.

Initiatives also include adopting local carbon budgets, which run alongside financial budgets, as well as plans to fit solar panels on schools and other public buildings to take advantage of feed-in tariffs and increase the use of renewable energy.

While admitting that tackling inequality will not be easy because of the public spending cuts, he said the first priority will be to protect services for children, vulnerable adults and those on low incomes.

Other initiatives include introducing a ‘living wage’ and ensuring that the highest paid council officer earns no more than 10 times the lowest paid officer.

Involving communities is a high priority with plans being piloted to introduce neighbourhood councils with their own budgets and working closely with the city’s vibrant third sector and trade unions.

Mr Randall said the administration takes over in hard times but that there is a new spirit in the city.

“We believe we have captured that spirit to offer the city a fresh start through policies fuelled by fairness and driven by a desire to produce the UK's Greenest city and narrow the gap between rich and poor. We look forward to working with residents, public and private sector partners to achieve our aims."

Headteacher's Letter to Holland Park Parents

Here is the evidence of the Holland Park headteacher's rush to academy status. Note the lack of any attempt to acknowledge that there may be a case against conversion.

Click image to enlarge

Holland Park academy conversion to be rushed through

I heard today at the SERTUC Conference on Academies and Free Schools that parents at Holland Park School in Kensington and Chelsea got a letter on Thursday about a meeting on academy conversion that will take place  on Monday. Governors will make a decicion on Thursday. What a breathtaking contempt for parents, pupils and the community!

Holland Park, where Tony Benn sent his children, is the only community secondary school in Kensington and Chelsea - so where does that leave parental choice?

The parents' meeting is at 6.30pm and leafleting will begin from 6pm or thereabouts.  If you have time please come and join us.

Don't be Seduced by Free Schools

I must start with a confession:  I worked as a volunteer a 'free school' back in the early 70s. The school was an ordinary terraced house in Friendly Street, Deptford and we taught about 14 11-16 year olds, mainly boys. Many were from old Romany families who were in the scrap iron businesses operating from under the railway arches. The other teachers included a dance teacher and a rock musician. The work was tough but fun with a mixed focus on basic skills and more creative pursuits. A highpoint was when they appeared in an improvised BBC TV play based on their lives.

Most of the children were school refusers or regular truants but they also included what were known at the time as school phobics. Similar projects mushroomed across London at the time, often started by community organisations and settlements who found out of school kids hanging around their doors during the day. The workers in the projects often started from a libertarian critique of the state school system and formed an organisation called LEAP (London Education Alternative Projects).

At the same time other students were actively rebelling in the state schools and some schools began to set up Units for Disruptive Children. These were often off-site and sometimes in poor accommodation. Troublesome children were sent to them and the staff tried to offer an alternative curriculum. Although the Units were funded by the Inner London Education Authority, and therefore part of the 'system', their teachers joined LEAP as they saw themselves as providing an alternative to the 'system'.

By this time I was working in mainstream primary education in North Westminster and involved in anti-racist work in the local community. A group of parents, teachers, school students and community activists met regularly at the 510 Centre in Harrow Road to discussion educational and other issues. One of the attenders was Paul Boateng, then a young lawyer at the Paddington Law Centre, concerned particular with the 'sus' laws.  It soon became clear that racism in schools was a big problem and that one institutional response in particular was a great concern to parents. Many black children, mainly boys, were being labelled 'disruptive' and sent to these units. The curriculum varied between units but often seemed to involve keeping the children occupied with sports and adventure playground  type activities rather than educating them in either basic skills or academic subjects. Few of the units were able to enter the children for public examinations and the claim that the children could return to mainstream school, after a spell in the unit, was seldom achieved in reality.

Local community campaigns were launched against the units as parents began to see them as similar to the ESN schools (old terminology: Educationally Subnormal) exposed by Bernard Coard (1) earlier where children were labelled on the basis of racist stereotypes. There were disproportionate numbers of black boys in Disruptive Units just as there had been in ESN schools. In our campaigning we began to call the Units 'Sin Bins'.  I wrote and spoke on the issue widely at the time and a key issue that arose was the concept of 'disruptive'. This label was a negative one attached to the child and took what he was 'disrupting' as the norm - his behaviour was the problem rather than the institution he was disrupting. We sought to replace 'disruptive' with 'disaffected' so that we could examine what the children were disaffected from: the school. Our focus soon revealed the problem of racist attitudes on the part of some teachers, low expectations and an inappropriate curriculum.

Thirty years later in 2005, I was asked to be a member of a panel discussing a new book: 'TELL IT LIKE IT IS: how our schools fail Black children' (2).  The meeting at Harlesden Library was crowded with angry and frustrated parents who still felt that their children were being treated unfairly in the system with the disproportionate number of black boys excluded a big issue. The historical development seemed to be: ESN>Disruptive>Excluded. In addition there were other issues about the curriculum and setting for examinations. What emerged during the discussion was that after the closure of Sladebrook (now the independent Swaminarayan School) the Harlesden area lacked its own high school. Queens Park was some distance away and then there was the City Academy in Willesden and faith schools. People felt that  having no school of its own impacted on the community with no central, unifying focus of a school 'of and for' the local community, a beacon reflecting its positive aspects in terms of culture, ethos and aspiration. Several parents said they wanted to campaign for a new high school for Harlesden.

I have written on this blog before about the imbalance between the north and south of Brent (roughly divided by the North Circular Road) in terms of secondary school provision. During the debate over the ARK Academy in Wembley campaigners made the argument that what was required was a new high school in the south of the borough, not yet another one in the north of the borough. The Council denied this was the case but ear-marked 50% of the ARK places for children from the south of the borough who had to travel some distance across the North Circular to school.

The campaign for the new school to be in the south of the borough was lost but  now a group have come forward with a Free School proposal for  secondary school in the Harlesden/Willesden area. The suggestion is for a Ma'at school. U.S. exponents call it 'Afrikan Centred' education:

As used by the Ancient Africans, Ma'at was a concept that stood for "universal order." Ma'at represents reality in all its manifestations both spiritual and material. It is the divine force that encompasses and embraces everything that is alive and exists. As an ethical system, Ma'at is often discussed as seven cardinal virtues (truth, justice, righteousness, harmony, balance, reciprocity, and order).

Further information about what the Harlesden group stand for can be found on their website, including their policy of 'no exclusions'. LINK Although I respect the reasons for their Free School application and deplore the fact that they have been let down by successive Brent administrations, I have strong reservations about using the Coalition's free school policy to set up a new school. I think free schools will be divisive in several ways. They are paid for by the government and the money for them will be taken away from the local council funds, reducing money available to other schools. They are not democratically accountable in the same way as local authority schools are via the council and local elections. They do not have to employ qualified teachers and their buildings do not have to meet the quality standards of normal schools. Most importantly they will make planning for school places across the borough extremely difficult.

I am worried that in order to keep classes small the schools will have to make other sacrifices such as employ more unqualified staff and operate from unsuitable premises. The 'no exclusions' policy is laudable but hard to implement. The socialist educationalist Chris Searle, who worked for Maurice Bishop and Bernard Coard in Grenada,and contributed to 'Tell it Like it Is', tried to operate such a policy in Sheffield. Teachers tried to work with the policy but eventually the teacher unions took action against him as members found it hard to teach in those circumstance. There is a possibility that in some ways the free schools will end up with some of the deficiencies of the 'sin bins' - not  in educational philosophy but in teaching and building resources. Just as the Disruptive Units let the local authority off the hook in terms of making changes in the mainstream, there is a possibility that such a free school would do the same for existing secondary schools. Dissatisfied parents may be told, 'Why don't you apply for the Ma'at if your are not happy?'  I am torn because I am well aware that after more than 30 years of trying black parents and teachers will be asking, 'How much longer must we wait?'

I see academies and free schools as part of an attempt to break up and privatise the state system. I have plenty of criticisms of the state system myself and the Green Party has firm ideas on how it should change. LINK However, I don't think we should be seduced by the free school project. There are plenty of groups who want to put their own educational ideas into practice, and that includes some close to the Green Party LINK but there is a debate to be had about using spaces created by reactionary policies for progressive causes.  I will be urging proponents of this approach  to fight for changes in the state system to achieve their aims - not follow the free school route.

(1)  How the West Indian child is made educationally subnormal in the British school system: the scandal of the Black child in schools in Britain, Bernard Coard  (New Beacon Books 1971) [Reprinted in (2) below]
(2) Tell It Like It Is: How our schools fail Black children, Ed Brian Richardson (Bookmarks and Trentham Books 2005, reprinted 2007)

ACT NOW ON NHS - 38 Degrees

Things are moving fast. The press are reporting that David Cameron and Nick Clegg are trying to finalise changes to their NHS plans - at least two weeks earlier than expected. [1] The next few days are critical - we need to move quickly to influence their decisions.

It looks like Clegg and Cameron may try to push ahead with at least two of the more worrying parts of Andrew Lansley's original plans. They're still toying with imposing more competition from private health companies. And they're still looking to scrap their legal duty to provide the same level of healthcare to everyone wherever they live.

Together, we can persuade them to drop these dangerous bits of the plans. MPs don't get a lot of phone calls from their voters. If thousands of us call them today, it will send shockwaves through parliament as MPs, Clegg and Cameron realise how determined we are to protect our NHS!

Can you phone your MP today? It's quick and easy. Find their name, number, and tips for what to say, here:
http://www.38degrees.org.uk/phone-your-mp

Yesterday, in the 38 Degrees office, team members Johnny and Becky contacted key allies and experts at health organisations, charities and in Parliament to try find out what's going on behind the scenes. [2] It's a bit murky. But reliable sources are saying that, right now, Clegg and Cameron are plotting out which parts of Lansley's plans they need to drop to win public support.

Everyone seems to expect that whatever decision is reached will be a lot better than Lansley's original plans - thanks, in no small part, to the efforts of 38 Degrees members! But they're telling us that we need to pile on more pressure in two key areas:

- Competition in the NHS - an argument is still raging: will the future of the NHS be about health professionals working together to ensure patients get the best possible treatment? Or will Andrew Lansley get his way and shift the NHS towards a US-style system, with a growing role for competition, private companies, and "market forces"? [3]

- The government’s duty to provide a "comprehensive health service" - the government still wants to water down their legal duty to provide a decent health service to everyone, regardless of where they live. This legal duty has been enshrined in law ever since the NHS was created in 1948! Scrapping it would pave the way for a more patchy service, and mean in the future we could all face more problems with "postcode lotteries". [4]

There's still time to push these decisions in the right direction. But we need to move fast. Can you call your MP right now?
http://www.38degrees.org.uk/phone-your-mp

Together we can make sure that as senior politicians sit down round the negotiating table, they're hearing reports of record numbers of voters on the phone calling on them to stand up for the NHS. That could just tip key decisions the right way.

The very fact that Clegg and Cameron are having to negotiate which parts of Lansley's plans they have to drop proves that, by working together, we can play a key role in protecting our NHS. [5 ]Sky News reported in April that the government had started backtracking on the NHS as "the result of a lobbying campaign by a pressure group called 38 Degrees". [6] That's us!

Whatever deal is announced next week, it's unlikely to be the end of our campaign. Any changes to the NHS will still need to pass through Parliament to become law, which means we will have fresh chances to improve them. But decisions made in the next few days definitely matter - so let's take our chance to stand up for the NHS.

Please give your MP a ring. Find their name and number, and some tips for what to say to them, here:
http://www.38degrees.org.uk/phone-your-mp

Don't just sit there - DO SOMETHING!

DON'T MISS THIS FRIDAY 10 JUNE: STAND-UP FOR LIBRARIES

A fantastic line-up of brilliant comedy to raise funds for Brent SOS Libraries hosted by Kayla Forde. Featuring:

- Nathan Cassidy – “an incredible act…..gloriously entertaining” - Chortle
- Inel Tomlinson – Multi award winning. “inspired and original..definitely one to watch” - Chortle
- Chuquai Billy – “insightful, poignant and funny” – Three Weeks

+ Surprise friends and raffle
+ Bar and food available
+ BOOK NOW TO AVOID DISAPPOINTMENT
http://www.facebook.com/l/3fc1aaBXgVjP2eVbsPEYuHcjoLQ/www.wegottickets.com/event/121259

At THE NORTH LONDON TAVERN, 375 Kilburn High Road NW6 7QB
nearest tube - Kilburn
Doors open at 8 for an 8.30 show

SATURDAY June 11th  - FIGHTING ACADEMIES AND FREE SCHOOLS, Congress House, Great Russell Street, WC1 Details

SUNDAY JUNE 13th 3pm Brent Town Hall - Meeting on NHS organised by Barry Gardiner (I cannot go to this as have prior arrangement in Fryent Country Park - it would be great if someone could make notes on it and write up for Wembley Matters/BrentGreens blog) Details

MONDAY JUNE 13th - BRENT EXECUTIVE MEETING 7pm Brent Town Hall  - agenda items include cutting festival funding and mental health day opportunities Details

SUNDAY JUNE 19th GLADSTONBURY FESTIVAL, GLADSTONE PARK Details

MONDAY JUNE 20th Brent Governors Conference, Wembley Plaza Hotel, (next to Wembley Stadium station) from 8.45am - Sarah Teather will be speaking

If global warming was a bank, governments would already have saved it

Jonathan Neale's Willesden Green Library talk on Monday evening stimulated a good discussion there, and afterwards in the hospitable Rising Sun pub in Harlesden Road.

Neale suggested that those problems around climate change that could be solved through capitalism had been. But that capitalism with its emphasis on competition and reliance on neo-liberalism could not tackle the fundamental issues which required government action at a global level. He likened the situation to that of the Second World War when government intervention was required for the war effort. He said that now the need was for government action to save lives, not destroy them. This required cooperation - not competition.

He rejected notions of a monolithic, 'evil' capitalism, but instead argued that it was a complex system with different interests playing out against each other. Coal-based economies such as China, United States, India and South Africa were blocking the international level of cooperation needed. However the New York Times was in the forefront of reporting on climate change and had linked it to food shortages and uprisings.

Without the necessary cooperation conflict that we are already experiencing over competition for water, rising food prices (and subsequent food riots), and huge population movements would worsen.

Neale argued that the environmental movement was big enough to save whales but not big enough to save the world from climate change. He said that the working class were big enough to take the issue on but that the economic situation regarding employment and cuts undermined its capacity to do so.

However, the current political dominance of ideas supporting a smaller state, lower taxation, reduced public sector and privatisation were being challenged because the argument for market solutions had been undermined by the financial crisis and the exposure of the role of banks. The banks themselves had screamed for government action rather than settle for a market solution. He repeated the slogan 'if global warming was a bank governments would already have saved it'.

He ended on an optimistic note saying that the dominant idea that we couldn't change anything had been challenged by the uprisings in Egypt, Yemen and other countries. People internationally were generalising from that and had been inspired by it, affecting for example teachers in Wisconsin who, barred from striking over restrictive union laws, had all called in sick for the day and occupied state buildings, quickly followed by their students.

Neale called for campaigners on climate change to build a mass movement with trade unionists and the wider community with the demand for a million new jobs at the centre of its demands.

Videos of Neale's talk are available on Brent Greens Blog HERE

Many thanks to the Brent Campaign Against Climate Change for organising this talk and Willesden Green library for hosting it.