May I gloat please? Free school fails ..... before opening

[TalkinPeace2]

www.guardian.co.uk/education/2012/jul/18/free-school-withdrawn-lack-parent-interest

What a waste of money!

I love the choice of photo by The Guardian too! Gove deserves it, I'm afraid...

why the need to gloat?

DS1 is at a free school and it is fantastic. It was over-subscribed last year when it opened, and even more over-subscribed this year.
I'm very glad that we've been able to take advantage of sending our son/s there

Gove looks like Pob in that picture.

Gloating presumably because free schools are one of Gove's expensive pet projects, which are only supposed to be given the go-ahead when there is sufficient local demand, and there clearly wasn't sufficient local demand so the project collapsed, just a few weeks before it was supposed to open.

The problem was down to not getting the parental interest there. Certainly not a problem for free schools overall, which I think are a good thing.

There's a desperate lack of primary places in some part of the country and it's an absolute scandal that Gove is giving the go ahead for ££££ of public money to be spent on completely unnecessary pet projects where there's actually not a need for a school whilst there are children without school places elsewhere.

not sure about the gloating but feel like muttering a quiet I-told-you-so

there have been all sorts of problems like this in Sweden, basically to do with the fact that free schools open up in places where someone feels like opening a free school, not where there is actually the population base for a new school

for some reason, very few free schools seem to open out in the sticks

the result is two half full, underfunded schools (the free school and the existing state schools) which struggle on for a few years until the free school folds

which seems a good and happy state of affairs for those who who believe in the sanctity of market forces, less so for the pupils who have to live with the situation

Katharine Birbalsingh's proposed free school also fell through this year - so say because she couldn't secure the building, but largely believed locally to be because she couldn't muster parental interest in Wandsworth.

If you can't build momentum in a flagship Tory borough you must be barking up the wrong proverbial. here

Doubtless she'll be back.

I'm not gloating but I'm bloody furious at the waste of money when children in so many of our schools are working in too big classes in cramped surroundings. It's time Gove's vanity free school project was laid to rest. Outrageous.

LAs aren't allowed to build schools where and when they want - first dabs to go free schools and academy.

Yes, Newham has a desperate shortage of primary places, which is why a vanity project of an unnecessary secondary school (as this one was meant to be) is such a scandal.

Free schools and academies are not accountable to parents, they're accountable to shareholders. Part of privatisation agenda. What about SEN? etc, etc, etc

tiggytape
are you seriously saying that Toby Young's school is not a vanity project?
LEAs did not build schools because they HAD to use PFI (thanks Broon and Bliar) which ramped up the cost three fold and trebled the time taken. Lucky them.
Look at the NHS which did use PFI.

The Government could easily borrow enough money at rock bottom rates to build the schools and infrastructure that we need
but there is this obsession with reducing on balance sheet debt
in favour of kicking the can down the road with PFI
for our grandchildren to pay four times over.

But the Newham school clearly wasn't needed ie it didn't have any pupils.

Re PFIs. Yes, major problems to come. Paying off the PFI debt was one of the reasons that a PCT in the SW of London recently went into administration. There will be lots, lots more.

JuliaScurr - Free schools and academies are charities. Yes, they tend to be constituted as a company limited by guarantee, as are the vast majority of charities. But the "shareholders" are not allowed to make any profit. And they are required to cater for SEN in exactly the same way as LA-controlled schools. Yes, some find ways of pushing SEN children out of the school but LA-controlled schools are no better.

And do you really think LA-controlled schools are accountable to parents?

prh47bridge unconvinced
antiacademies.org.uk/tag/privateers/
Why would this govt want to do this otherwise?

Accountable - ish, because if your (eg) Labour LA introduce a policy of new uniform every term, you can elect (eg) Parents Against Uniform next time.
SEN facilities are expensive and rely on TA's - currently being sacked as superfluous

Which is exactly where local planning comes in, rather than random projects that there may or may not be a need for at some unspecified time in the future.

New schools need to be situated where is an actual need - surely you don't disagree with that?

There are differences between free schools and academies and maintained schools. The former two don't have to follow the national curriculum and the latter does, and free schools can employ unqualified teachers.

JuliaScurr - Yes, you could elect "Parents against Uniform" next time but in most LAs your chances of doing so are minimal.

I didn't get beyond the first article on the link you provided. It contains clear allegations of criminal behaviour, although it mainly appears to be based on supposition with no hard evidence to back it up.

Why would this government want to do this otherwise? How about for the same reason Tony Blair pursued this policy - because they believe, rightly or wrongly, that this is a good way of improving education? I am not saying that is their motivation but I see no reason to discount it completely.

Blair had the same neo-liberal politics; possibly why Labour lost 2 million voters?

It may improve educatiion temporarily, though in many cases, academisation has yielded worse results. But much greater profit making opportunities.

It's quite hard for local authorities to build new schools when they've been financially cut to the bone.