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.

five, I believe that one of the benefits of the free school scheme is that schools that offer alternative approaches and methodologies now have a place in the state-funded system. I only use Summerhil and Montessori as examples of alternatives to the traditional classroom and exam focused methodology, Summerhill because it's already been mentioned, and Montessori because it's vaguely understood across a large audience. Under the free school system, there could be publicly available montessori or summerhill-like schools. (Though I think there are actually several Montessori schools in the state system.)

I don't see how a traditional classroom methodology and a montessori-like methodology are compatible within a single school, again as an illustration. If you were to set them up in the same school, they'd be such diverse offerings that the two sections of the school for all intents and purposes would behave as two separate schools. They would need separate heads! So why not have two separate schools?

I certainly believe that a child could be both a gifted musician as well as scientist, most of us would. And I wouldn't be personally inclined to send my dc to schools with a specific focus on content, unless of course they were really keen to do so.

I do think the question of curriculum CONTENT and teaching METHODOLOGY gets very confused in these discussions. While I think a conventional comprehensive could and perhaps ought to offer a wide range of CONTENT at different levels, I don't see how it can offer a range of METHODOLOGY. I hope this addresses your question of why I think numerous small schools are better at addressing diversity than one big school. I also have a prejudice toward smaller schools, as I see them as more flexible and responsive, compared to larger schools, which I perceive as more cumbersome and bureaucratic. Whether this prejudice stands up to scrutiny is another matter.

So, Mr Toby Young

we have read, reviewed and digested your blog and your responses
and found them wanting

are you willing to come and rejoin the discussion?

'The data she received showed that on average, a quarter of children attending the five schools nearest to each of the free schools were eligible for subsidised lunches, compared with just one in 11 of the pupils at the free schools.

At the West London Free School, founded by the journalist and author Toby Young, just over 23% of pupils are eligible for free lunches, compared with just over 32% in the five neighbouring schools. At Batley grammar school, a free school in Kirklees, just 4.3% of pupils are eligible for free school meals, compared with 19% in the five neighbouring schools.'

www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/nov/14/free-schools-lower-number-deprived-pupils

Diversity in educational offerings is not the same as social diversity within a given school. In my posts, I've been using diversity to refer to a variety of state funded educational offerings, and would argue that the social diversity question is valid and common to all state schools, free or conventional. I would further suggest that once would increase the social diversity within alternative educational offerings by bringing them under the free school umbrella, as this at least eliminates the parents must pay criteria.

Variety within the state provision is good. I would come down on the site of free schools operating alongside others, along side home schooling private, state selective and all the others mentioned as that is more of the libertarian view.

The alternative answer would be one type of school only in all areas, ban home schooling as in Germany and prohibit private schools and injunct parents who choose to send their children abroad to school. Then bus those from rich areas to poor areas and ban all religious teaching in all schools. That way you would achieve uniformity.

am so tempted to get my DH to charge Toby up to 1,000,000 volts
it being part of DH's day job after all

merely that 1,000,000 volts is quite fun - both my kids enjoy it and so do I
Van de Graaf machines are wonderful - and part of the National Curriculum

Yes, I see your point a bit more clearly zazi, however I still take issue with it.

It's interesting that you should see free schools as potentially offering an 'alternative methodology' which may offer more tailoring to the individual needs of the child when TY's school, as I have already mentioned, is, in contrast, very much a throwback to a sort of 1950s, traditional education where children are expected to conform right down to their study of Latin and their haircuts.

I also think there is very little evidence that alternative 'methodologies' of the sort that you suggest have any advantages. You do not respond to my point that the choice of a Montessori school or a Summerhill sort of school or faith schools are much more about parental preference or percpetions of a child (which may well be unhelpful) than about educational advantages. I'm not sure how far the state can or should cater for such preferences especially where, as I've indicated, they could exacerbate social divisions and conflict within communities.

Back to the hospitals analogy, I would not be happy about my taxes paying for a hospital with an 'alternative approach' to healthcare if there was no evidence that this would have any benefit to patients purely to meet the preference of a small group of patients. IF people want to have alternative therapies with no evidence that they work then that's up to them but they should pay for it themselves in my view.

There's a lot of work done on schooling and social inequality, with particular to state schools and comprehensive schools. Google 'comprehensive schooling social inequality' to find interesting research on this.

'I've been using diversity to refer to a variety of state funded educational offerings'

But I fail to see how free schools offer diversity of any kind. They offer a narrow curriculum and set of values to a small group of largely privileged children. Where's the diversity?

In fact, if you click on the free schools now opened on the bottom of this link it's even more worrying than I had thought www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-14747635

The majority of these schools are faith schools with a couple of schools defecting from the independent sector.

I think this will certainly exacerbate ethnic and religious tensions in our communities and help prevent integration.

he wants is to return to traditional models that served us well over a long period

Ah, yes, the golden age. Latin, proper haircuts, the ability to sing a perfect c sharp. Those are certainly the skills we need for the modern world

And it's so great that we're increasing the number of our children who are segregated by their religion what with Northern Ireland providing such a wonderful example of social cohesion.

smallwhitecat
WHY oh WHY would we want to go back to a pre 1950's education system.
We are not in a pre 1950's world.
before WW2 the European countries "owned" the world
now there are more engineering graduates in China than in the whole EU
we have reached the global limit of outsourcing
the public school ethos of creating the worlds adminstrators is less arrogant than daft
the ONLY way that the UK will get back to being competitive / growth is to find the hidden talents which frankly involves finding the kids that the current system (eton etc) miss completely cos they have dumb parents and slur their words

I think so much of it is generated by a horrible nostalgia. What kids need today is a good dose of Latin, old fashioned haircuts and a good spanking like we boys used to get at Eton And look where we are today. In charge of the country and doing such a good job.

50% of children at the best universities, 73% of the judiciary, a large number of the cabinet, large number of board posts are all children with that type of education. It is the best on the planet and these days you have to pay to get it. Lots of us work very very hard to pay school fees to b uy that advantage. I have no objection to the state sector seeking to follow that model even though it will make more competition for my children.

My basic point is that I like parents to have choice. The best choice would be a voucher to all to use at any school private and state of course and those of us who pay fees (600,000 of us get our £5k a year or whatever it costs to educate a child at a state school)

'It is especially important that a leading Northern Irish politician is discussing the need for more integrated institutions. It is high time for the matter of the immense potential harm of separating children into different schools on the basis of their parents' religion to move up the political agenda. The opening of a debate in Northern Ireland contrasts with the situation in mainland Britain where our leading politicians are all committed not only to keeping our existing faith schools but also to making more of them.'

www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/nov/29/northern-ireland-segregated-schools-peter-robinson

Xenia
FINE, pay for it out of the excess earnings over and above the £19,000 median wage in the UK
but DO NOT expect those of use who do not have the spare cash to be happy to subsidise people like Mr Toby Young in his little vanity project in discrimination

PS You find me the private school that has its fees at £5k per year and I'M THERE (my brother pays £13000 and we that taxpayer an extra £14000 for his son to be at Winchester)

'Faith schools, of course, are not just ethno-religiously, but also socio-economically selective. A community school is likely to have about 50% more pupils requiring free school meals than a voluntary aided (faith) school is. Pupils are also, on average, weaker academically when they start at the school. Why is this? It is because the simple fact that the school is selecting at all means that wealthier, more ambitious parents can work harder to manipulate the system and get their children into the stronger schools. In other words, the selection in itself cuts out the pupils from the poorest backgrounds, and so the school attracts pushier parents from wealthier backgrounds, and so the cycle perpetuates. And this, rather than anything inherent about the religious ethos of the school, is what leads some faith schools to achieve such outstanding exam results.'

www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2011/jun/13/faith-schools-fragment-communities

I don't understand this choice thing. Where is the choice? All the high schools in our borough have specialisms (science, maths, art, etc). But they have catchment areas by location. So are they really saying that children in one area of the borough are more naturally mathematical, and others in another area are more naturally arty???? They are all over-subscribed, so it is not as if you can realistically choose another option.

My friend's children are at the school below. She lives two bus rides away. Her sister's children live far, far closer (walking distance) but cannot get in as they have cleverly written their criteria to favour the more affluent areas (an old story, but the policy has stayed the same - they even became an academy to keep it)
www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23575550-state-school-broke-rules-by-barring-children-from-local-estates.do

As for all this streaming / separation is great stuff, people seem to have forgotten that children develop at different rates. My son's teacher called me yesterday to say that he was moving him to the top set for maths (year four, state). I said how relieved I was that maths was finally coming together like his reading did. He queried what I meant, and could not believe it when he heard that in reception DS was on a watch list for possible SEN as his reading was so poor. He is apparently now one of the top few out of ninety. I am very grateful that he is in a school which has had the fluidity to allow him to develop at his own pace, and to recognise when he has done so. (sorry if this seems boastful, I wouldn't usually spell out his achievements like this, but am doing so to prove my point that some children are late bloomers and that a rigid selection process that leads to permanent placement could harm them).

Zazi - a former colleague moved to NZ and chose the Montessori strand at this school:
www.otari.school.nz/Otari_School/About_the_School.html

It has three educations styles within one school - so different approaches could coexist with some creativity. (interesting to not that the "original" and "Montessori" strands speand their first two years together).