Private school wants to open free school near me. Why?

[Dibbets]

A private school on the other side of the city wants to open a free school near where I live. The idea is quite appealing as there isn't a well regarded school near here and many children bus out to other areas. But I can't help feeling a bit uneasy about the proposal. What's in it for them? They talk about it being a beneficial partnership for both sides but the focus is on sharing knowledge and a moral drive to raise standards across the board. It seems a bit unlikely that they would invest so much effort into this for such woolly reasons.

[PonderingProsecco]

Surely more laudable to support an existing state school than start up a new free school that is likely to cream off children from existing state school nearby....

[noblegiraffe]

Next on the list of private schools 'sponsoring' state schools from the Telegraph list was Dulwich College. It took some digging to find this is actually City Heights E-Act Academy, and E-Act (who are notoriously bad as an academy chain) are the sponsor, not Dulwich. Actually, it takes some looking through their website to find mention of an 'Educational Partnership' with Dulwich College which includes:
Joint student events and conferences
Gap year Academy Assistants
6th form reading mentors
Sporting fixtures and Sports Day

So actually not much involvement at all.

[EdithWeston]

That's because Dulwich withdrew its direct sponsorship a few years ago (poss around the time of that article?) but AFAIK it still does all sorts of governance stuff. And isn't its main effort in the Southwark Schools Partnership these days?

[PonderingProsecco]

mmm- noble...
Not much point if not useful support that a state school actually wants or needs.
Something meaningful and more equal so that state school can request type of support needed rather than just reading volunteers and the like!

[exexpat]

I presume this is the news story you are talking about, OP? www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-37419986

I'm not local to Knowle, so don't know the issues with the current users of the likely building etc, but I do know BGS. I think you might be letting your prejudices affect your judgement when it comes to what you believe the attitude of parents would be: "The private school parents will not want their experience diluted by mixing with the hoards." Have you ever actually spoken to any of them? BGS has never been a 'posh' school like Clifton College, and I think most people send children there for its academic reputation, not for social exclusivity.

Until the 70s, it was a direct grant grammar school, so a fixed number of places (around one third?) were state funded for people who couldn't afford fees. Then when grammar schools were abolished, a large number of pupils still had their fees paid by the state assisted places scheme. I was there briefly in the 1980s and a lot of my friends came from working class families in areas like Stockwood and Bedminster, and their parents did not pay fees. Since the assisted places scheme was abolished, the school has tried to fill the gap with bursaries and scholarships, but obviously does not have the big endowment funds that old public schools have so cannot offer bursary places to everyone who would like/benefit from one. Even so, there are plenty of children there now from not-posh areas of Bristol and the outlying areas, and I would guess some of them have bursaries, but no one knows who has one and who hasn't. I certainly haven't heard of any us-and-them attitudes between full-fee-paying and subsidised students.

I don't know the ins and outs of the plan for the new school, but I would be extremely surprised if the underlying motivation was to get rid of bursaries at the main school, as some previous posts seem to suggest.

[catslife]

If it's the proposal i think it is will send you a pm OP then the independent school isn't in the top tier of independent schools by any means.
The proposal is that this selective independent (with practically zero SEN/FSM) will open a 1000 pupil all age (4-16 years) school in one of the most deprived wards of the city where there are a high percentage of dcs with FSM, SEN etc.
The previous free school in this city (which has had it's first GCSE results this year) is on the edge of a deprived area, but has a catchment that excludes many dcs from the council estate. i am therefore concerned that the new school will do the same.

[noblegiraffe]

Wow, if that's the proposal being discussed, then it would be very interesting to see how it pans out. If the school does have a very deprived intake and doesn't mess around with catchment areas, then I'm wondering why the private school thinks it has the expertise to deal with the problems.

A poor kid who applies for and gets a bursary to a private school would likely be a very different educational prospect to a neighbourhood of disadvantaged children going to their nearest school.

[Dibbets]

The area is actually very mixed/split. Yes the school would be likely be positioned in the council estate but I think the name would be a draw for the more middle class areas nearby. That's probably part of why it's appealing to them.

[Dibbets]

Certainly the parents I have spoken to near me (not on the estate) are extremely interested and keen.

[Dibbets]

exexpat I think you're a bit naive to think that parents don't choose that school because of its social exclusivity. That's a large part of it.

[noblegiraffe]

Right, that 2013 Telegraph article said 36 private schools sponsored state schools. Then it said only 5 were main sponsors. It listed:

Brighton college - sponsors a highly selective state sixth form
Dulwich - dropped out of its sponsorship
Candford - the school it sponsors gets 53% A*-C
Wellington - the school it sponsors and set up gets 50% A*-C
Skinners School Kent - appears to be a state grammar not a private school

So, where are the leaders to show this works well?

The Telegraph had the Head of Brighton College arguing it was great without mentioning the school he sponsored was highly selective and 16-19.
The woman who argued against said that if her school had capacity to set up a state school it wouldn't be doing its main job properly!

[Dibbets]

So there really isn't a template for them to follow in terms of making this work. And they didn't seem to have concrete ideas of their own either.

[oreosforlunch2002]

I wanna stick up for free schools, my Dd goes to the first free school in Bristol. Had a managed move in Y7, Sen and PP. Things werent looking good and we were at end of our tether, school was still in portacabins then.

I have learnt since that the school was stuck on its site at the edge of a deprived area because the council were very against it opening and refused to allow it on the original site in middle of catchment. The parents changed the admissions to guarentee 20% of children from deprived area admission desipte opposition from undersubscribed schools there claiming it would make them unviable.
The wealthy middle class parents were very welcoming of us and we were well supported.
School put amazing efforts into my dd and confounding all expectations passed her Gcses and went to the sixth form.
School is doing so well they have now expanded and takes in more children from deprived area at the same time keeping its intake from middle class area.
I wanna Thank the parents there who set the school up and are so involved in it now and keep standards high yet its still inclusive. They even give uniforms and more to children on fsm who can't afford them.

So to those people who say that rich parents want to keep there children away from the poor, I wanna tell you is not true, people do care.

[AnyTheWiser]

Surely it's better (in terms of social mobility) that independent schools provide more assistance to able children without means, rather than set up entirely separate schools for their education?
Doesn't KE in Birmingham have 40% of pupils receiving assistance?
Lots of independent schools began as 'ragged schools' to educate 'the poor'.

[ArcheryAnnie]

3amEternal that's nice. Still doesn't change the fact that they can - and do - behave very shabbily towards their charity projects (state school pupils) when they want to.

[mathsmum314]

Unless you want to dictate what charities spend their money on then you cant tell private school how to spend their charitable buck on. Private schools have no expertise in teaching deprived children, so not quite as easy as saying go teach the thick kids.
A private school is trying to give back to a community why are people attacking it?

[mathsmum314]

It very ignorant of posters to not realize that its rich tax payers that allow a state sector to exist. They are paying EXTRA to educate their children, I would suggest the state could not afford to ban private schools.

Stick that in your momentum pipe and smoke it.

[noblegiraffe]

Tug your forelocks, folks, Lady Bountiful is here.

[noblegiraffe]

So there really isn't a template for them to follow in terms of making this work.

There are plenty of Free Schools out there, just not that many that have been set up by private schools. The problem with Free Schools at the moment is results - the first cohorts to spend their entire secondary schooling at a Free School only sat their exams in June, and the league tables aren't out till January. Once the league tables are out we will be able to see how effective they have been, and whether they are meeting their stated aims re FSM. We know some headline figures that have been published on school websites - e.g. Toby Young's West London Free School got 73% which seems good, Bristol Free School got 66%, but until progress figures and the intake breakdown are seen, these are fairly meaningless.

One thing that people should be aware of is that just because a private school might get astounding results, that doesn't mean that they would be able to achieve the same results with a different intake.

[mathsmum314]

Apparently if your not on FSM your not entitled to a good education.

All you teachers, that work in the private sector, your all selfish and dont care about anyone else. I guess that covers doctors working privatly, bus drivers, nurses, and everyone else privatly employed.

The militant socialists are trying to take over. Time to fight back against haters.

[noblegiraffe]

Who exactly are you accusing of being a militant socialist, mathsmum?

[mouldycheesefan]

Bristol grammar yes?

[mathsmum314]

Who exactly are you accusing of being a militant socialist

Anyone who thinks your selfish, a pleb, and anti society just because you use the private sector.

[mouldycheesefan]

there isn't a secondary school in knowle children have to go elsewhere so a new school,actually in the area run by a successful school, can only be a good thing.
These are not children that would be going to Bristol grammar even with bursaries etc . I would be surprised if a single child at BGS came from that estate.

[minifingerz]

"The idea is that the private school will use their 'expertise' at running a successful school to make the new school a good one"



Private schools have fuck all expertise at educating middle and low achievers (who make up most of the school population) and doing it successfully on an annual spend of 6K or less per head.