Will free schools drive up standards? Read Toby Young's guest post and join the conversation

[ElenMumsnetBloggers]

Are free schools ready to fall or fly? Do they really drive up standards or are they a snobbish gimmick? And should more parents be setting up their own schools? Journalist and producer Toby Young explains why he set up the West London Free School and what makes the free school proposition an exciting one. Join the conversation that Toby's begun and have your say on free schools.

A question about the perceived exclusivity of free schools; wouldn't a state school which determined or prioritised admissions on a catchment area, giving priority to children in the local area, also be considered a form of exclusivity?

I believe that any single education programme cannot address the needs of all students and communities. I embrace the idea of free schools because it provides a publicly funded means for communities of parents to tailor their children's educational experiences. Since this option is publicly funded, any perceived 'exclusion' is not based on finances, which as I mentioned above is not even the case for state schools where admissions are prioritised for high-value property catchments.

I'm with Xenia and others on the value of diversity in educational offerings. The more education options that are available, the better the education system will be. While I personally wouldn't chose the WLFS offering for my dc, I understand that it appeals to other families, and I strongly support their right to choice and am proud to live in a society where they have that choice. (Technically, I'm in Wales and do NOT actually live in such a society.)

Criticisms of the WLFS curriculum are not the same as criticisms of free schools. Don't like a free school offering? Don't send your kids there. You may on the other hand find one that is ideal for your family if you are interested in taking advantage of the programme.

It seems to me there is this general idea on here about fairness and anti-exclusivity, which when taken to the extreme, means that if a exciting educational offering can't be made available to everyone, then it shouldn't exist at all. How sad!

TP, I'm not into segregation. Indeed I delight in the fact that the very very academic selective day schools of NW London have some of the best racial and religious mixes of any school system in the country. We all benefits hugely from it and I love lving in a melting pop of entrepreneurs where talent and brains and hard work will out etc.

However I hope we'dll all defend almost unto death the rights for parents to choose instead to segregate on whatever grounds they choose and in particular have the right to home school.

if you want pure comprehensiveness people would need to do what Brighton did and the Deep South in the US which is bus children of one kind from one area ot another. it's the only way in some cases (although there are a good few bits of the UK where thre is one comp in the area and nothing much else and most children go there. Cities are very different.

I just tghink the Toby Young and free schools fudge is a laughable British compromise. If the parents want children subjected to a very academic curriculum with a parent body who supports that why not just test their IQ and let in the bright ones as the private schools (those that are selective) do so well. If you want only posh children in then interview and have questionnaires. If you want everyone including those with very low IQs as well as the very bright then make that your criteria but I don't see why we have not allowed selection by IQ in these state schools when the good people of Kent and Bucks are lalowed it. What is so special about the DNA of the Buckinghamshire people that the state deemds them allowed selective state education which the people of Newcastle are denied? Presumably the only difference is that they're richer and posher.

but Xenia the results from the pupils in Bucks, Kent and Lincs (the three counties that have the tripartite system) are no better than in any other county and chances are the kids that get stuck in the secondary moderns never get to achieve their true potential - at least in a Comp kids can move up the sets

however I utterly agree with you that the state should not be funding backdoor selection like that at TYs school.
You want selective elitism, fine, get out the cheque book. My family did.

zazi, you are a teeny bit naive if you think that public funding means that children are not excluded because of parental income. There has been so much research that indicates any barrier to a school i.e. faith, transport, 'ability', 'aptitude', fancy uniform etc, etc leads to a corresponding reduction in intake of children on free school meals.

'wouldn't a state school which determined or prioritised admissions on a catchment area, giving priority to children in the local area, also be considered a form of exclusivity?'

Well, of course, that depends on your catchment. If you need several million to buy a property within the catchment then yes. Many people would like to see an education system where the local school is a good school for EVERY CHILD.

'I believe that any single education programme cannot address the needs of all students and communities.'

A 'single education programme' by which I assume you mean comprehensive education does not mean a homogenised education. A single school should be perfectly able to cater for the needs and aspirations of all of its pupils offering support and challenge and a range of academic and vocational subjects.

I have always struggled to see how a 'specialist sports college' or 'specialist musci school' benefits has a particular benefit for those pupils who do are not sporty or musical. Interestingly, the school near me which became a 'specialist language college' saw its results in languages and the number of people continuing a language at A Level drop after receiving this status.

Since you cannot have as many schools as there are children it is common sense that EVERY school should be able to meet the needs of EVERY child bar those who fundamentally cannot cope with mainstream education (i.e. those who attend schools for EBD).

'It seems to me there is this general idea on here about fairness and anti-exclusivity, which when taken to the extreme, means that if a exciting educational offering can't be made available to everyone, then it shouldn't exist at all. How sad!'

But who on earth is arguing for this extreme? I've never come across a school or a person who says 'no we can't offer x, y and z to everyone therefore it shouldn't exist'. That's just stupid scaremongering.

What is so special about the DNA of the Buckinghamshire people that the state deemds them allowed selective state education which the people of Newcastle are denied? Presumably the only difference is that they're richer and posher.

You know fine that that the state has not deemed that Buckinghamshire people are allowed selective state education while those in Newcastle are not. It was a decision devolved to local authorities, and those two authorities have made different decisions.

I love the idea of a melting pop of entrepreneurs. Like a big old Tory fondue/firework.

I'd spotted that but chosen not to comment.

Just picking up on the "disability" thing.
There is a HUGE difference between Bert Massie, Peter White, Tanni Grey Thompson, Eric Sykes
or a person with severe learning difficulties who will never cope in the outside world
please do not make the mistake of lumping people together under any badge
be it skin colour, lack of foreskin or mobility issues

I said mix with those of very high IQ. I believe in academic selection (and indeed most comps have some setting but there are lots of good reasons to have more total segregation by IQ). So if you are thick as a plank and white or black or have no legs then you would and indeed are excluded from state grammars and academic private schools. If you're disabled and very bright then you will often do pretty well in the academic schools.

Then the specialist music schools they segregate so that children who are very good at music Chetham's etc go there.

Some parents like I am prefer single sex schooling so that's segregation by gender etc etc.

Also some parents want everyone mixed together although even there you rarely get a child who lives ni Herts being bussed in to the worst comprehensive in inner London to ensure proper mixing do you?

you have a lot of faith in IQ tests
and a complete lack of realisation that the bell curve of learning rates means that not all children are at the same place on the same day

my DS is a late August birthday
if he sat the Grammar test he'd be up against children 361 days older than him
he is in fact in top sets at school but his maturity is well behind many of the older kids both physical and cognitively
at least in a comp he can excel gradually, ready for the crunch of GCSE
in Kent he'd be left to rot in a Secondary modern

fivecandles, I think we agree that the question of exclusivity as applied specifically to free schools is a bogus one. That was my point, and you've stated it clearly and better.

However, I disagree with your statement that "A single school should be perfectly able to cater for the needs and aspirations of all of its pupils offering support and challenge and a range of academic and vocational subjects."

My idea of diversity in education goes far beyond content offerings such music, latin or IT. What if a child is better suited to non-traditional classroom environment, such as a montessori or summerhill environment? What if a child is better suited to a non-exam based and more experiential educational programme? What if the family wants knowledge of a divinity to be more explicitly present in all aspects of teaching? Are comprehensives supposed to address those needs as well? These are just three examples of many. The state is making the choices about the educational priorities in the national curriculum, and many people are satisfied and comfortable with those choices. For those parents who aren't, free schools provide a mechanism for options. Otherwise, only those parents with disposable income would have the options described above. Some people may argue that if you want anything other than the state mandate you should have to pay. I don't agree.

zazi, I think there is a debate to be had about how well our state schools meet the needs of all their pupils. But I think your vision is naive and unworkable.

How is it possible for there to be a school tailored to the needs of each child (and/or those of their parents) within travellable distance??

So my children 'require' a secular, arts focused education but actually dd1 wants an education with lots of sport and lots of academic rigour and competition while dd2 wants an education which allows her to go at her own pace with more play and less drive. My neighbour on the other hand wants a science-based, co-ed, Christian education and the people across the street want single sex Muslim schools for their children. Do you see where I'm going with this?

Of course, we can't all get the precise tailored education we want especially not if the number of children in our local area only supports 3 schools. And what would be the impact of separating our community in this way?

I live in an area which has suffered enormously from the divisions exacerbated by faith schools. And you only have to look at Northern Ireland to see how badly this can go wrong.

And actually how much of this is about what the parents want for their children or assume their children want? How can you possibly know what sort of education will best prepare a child for where they want to be at age 20?

While I might assume that my kids, like me, will be arts-focused and atheist, I am hugely grateful that they attend a school which makes no such assumptions and encourages all children to try all sorts of subjects. If I had got the sort of education I might have asked for for dd1 she might never have discovered her talents in sport and science.

In fact, a fairly large school with excellent facilities and a wide range of expertise (in the full curriculum plus the full range of support and extra-curricular activities) is likely to cater better for the local catchment than a range of schools with very particular specialisms.

'What if a child is better suited to non-traditional classroom environment, such as a montessori or summerhill environment?'

Then the obvious answer is send them to a montessori school or summerhill.

But there cannot be a montessori school or summerhill school in every single LEA. And that would certainly not be financially viable option.

I would also reiterate my point that whose making the judgement that a child would be better suited to such a school? There have been some heart-rending accounts of children who went to Summerhill and wished they hadn't.

fivecandles
that is a REALLY important point
DH and I are both science / maths based. The school our kids are at is a sports / language specialist
so actually the school balances our prejudices and our kids are coming out better than if I'd followed my own narrow prejudices

also, when I was at school I had teachers categorically saying that there would be no paper in offices or schools within 20 years

and my university had 2 computers when I was an undergrad

we MUST not narrow our children's choices with our own blinkers

'Who is' that should be.

It is common sense that taxpayers money must pay for the system that will benefit the most.

It's the same with hospitals. Imagien if each town had a specialist heart hospital and specialist maternity hospital and a hospital only catering for Muslims. It's just ridiculous.

When you're ill or about to give birth or need physio, you want to be able to go to your nearest hospital and you want them to be able to give you the best possible health care whatever your condition, faith, aspirations.

Same with schools.

Which is one reason why it's so stupid to apply the principle of competition and 'choice' to public services.

There's evidence to suggest that children with surnames beginning with letters in the first half of the alphabet do better than those in the second half of the alphabet. That doesn't mean we stick them in a separate school. It means we spend too much time arbitrarily categorising, classifying and listing children at the expense of developing their brains. That also explains why we have so many children in the SEN category - these are often simply non-standard children in a lot of cases, stuck in a system that prefers homogenised clusters of predictable pupils because they are more convenient to teach. Education needs to be much more nuanced than that if it is to work properly in the 21st century.

Here is what happens if you categorise children arbitrarily.

A class divided

For Blue Eyes/Brown Eyes, read race, class, gender or whatever you like ...

Well, it's also September birthdays vs summer birthdays. Some ridiculous percentage of Oxbridge entrants and athletes are September -December born.

But why do so few people talk meaningfully about ways we could improve the comprehensive system rather than assuming that dismantling it and exacerbating the divisions in society will help?

I can certainly understand how people who believe that if one wants choice, one should have to pay for it, would object to the idea of free schools. I am of the camp who believes there is actually a place for choice within public offerings.

fivecandles, from your "But there cannot be a montessori school or summerhill school in every single LEA. And that would certainly not be financially viable option," are you willing to go further and say therefore that there shouldn't be ANY publicly funded Montessoris or Summerhills?

I don't think it logically follows that "since you cannot have as many schools as there are children" that "EVERY school should be able to meet the needs of EVERY child bar those who fundamentally cannot cope with mainstream education." I think both statements are equally extreme; opposite ends of a continuum if you will. I believe the solution is somewhere in the middle and the best arrangement will be constantly evolving.

I also think comparing public education with public heathcare is too many apples and oranges.

Free schools are a good mechanism for efficiently promoting a diversity of educational offering, and wouldn't that ultimately benefit the most?

TalkinPeace2, I strongly believe that it's ultimately my parental responsibility to see that my child is appropriately educated. I attempt to do so based on my child's needs and desires rather than my own or my dp's, but I'm sure this is an ongoing challenge that all parents face in many aspects of parenting. Just because it's difficult doesn't mean I'm prepared to abdicate my responsibility to a Balls or a Gove.

'I am of the camp who believes there is actually a place for choice within public offerings.'

I'm not clear why you think there need to be separate schools in order to offer 'choice'. Please explain.

Why shouldn't a child who is a gifted musician also be a gifted scientist?

I have spent most of my working life in a huge variety of schools. What is truly amazing is how most schools cater so successfully with so many different abilities and needs and interests.

You are not responding to be argument that one large school is likely to cater for the needs of students in the catchement than several small schools with particular specialisms.

In fact, Toby Young put this perfectly himself when he said that parents of statemented children have not applied to his school since it was too small to have a decent provision for them!!

zazi, summerhill and montessori schools are independent. They are not state funded.

'Free schools are a good mechanism for efficiently promoting a diversity of educational offering, and wouldn't that ultimately benefit the most?'

Argh!! But they DON'T promote diversity. What they actually promote is social divisions. They have less children with SN and on free school meals. Toby YOung's school offers a very narrow curriculum and as he has confessed himself doesn't even offer a provison for statemented children. Your child cannot go to this school unless he or she has a 'musical aptitude' and is willing to learn Latin etc, etc. That's the opposite of diversity. That is conforming to a 1950s model of a 'good education'.

And they have taken a disproportionate amount of taxpayers money to educate a very few of our children.

'I also think comparing public education with public heathcare is too many apples and oranges.'

In what way? We pay our taxes and expect to be equal and good treatment in our local hospital. We don't expect to be barred on the basis of our faith or particular illness or ability to pay.

How would you feel if you tried to make an appointment at your local GP and she said she was only seeing Catholics from now on? Or people with diabetes? But you are perfectly entitled to go to the GP 5 miles away which will take anyone (even though it has a higher mortality rate).

And lets not forget the boy sent home from the WLFS for having the wrong hair cut!! www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/oct/21/free-school-punishes-short-haircut

So much for diversity!