Curious to know what thread regulars made of this.

Well done, AG. Excellent contribution. As perhaps you knew, my hackles started rising as the guy seemed like another liberal who was going against his principles when real-life hits, especially as he lives in East Finchley, an area I know well enough to know that there isn't exactly a paucity of good schools. However, the line spoke volumes.

Bath is the same. Until this year, 1% of England's single sex secondary schools were in Bath with 2 boys' and 2 girls' and only three mixed-sex and two of the latter are religious schools. Therefore, I can see his concern and, in this sense, this is a different case from many Free school applications. Indeed, as such, this is possibly the reason that they have had such issues as they are genuinely a parents' group, it seems, that is trying to open a genuinely comprehensive school.

Without knowing the make-up of the schools they have, par t of me would still say that they should lobbied the council for making schools mixed-sex. The main thing about the article though is that this is not what the majority of Free Schools or academies are going to be like. I had a look at their website and they talk a good fight but I feel that more are going to be along the lines of Toby Young's vanity project

Apologies, the first line of that seems like I am becoming a teacher too soon

Actually, at first I thought you were just being sarcastic.

Bloody hell, no. It made me think and challenged my initial views. I need that

I don't say everyone who sets up free schools is bad. But they're a massively inefficient way of providing school places, and they're running costs will be unnecessarily high. The government got Sir Philip Green to report on waste, and, fair play to him, he zeroed in on purchasing and how centralising it could save a lot of money. So devolving all that down from the LEA makes little sense.

So I oppose all free schools on principle.

Tubby Isaacs wrote:


There are certainly some pretty significant transition costs, but why would they necessarily have higher running costs?

The thing about that story that I liked is that in a sense this is the best possible story one could tell about a free school - these people aren't dogmatic free-marketeers, they're just a group of concerned parents who want a better education for their kid. Indeed, they are doing the kind of thing Bored always wants people to do (get involved in their school), albeit obviously in a different kind of way from what he's usually talking about.

Now, I look at this example and say "why can't this kind of energy and interest be directed into changing schools in the public system"? (I suppose you could argue that free schools are public, as they're certainly publicly funded). To me, this point is key: if you're going to exclude the possibility of things like free schools or charter schools, there has to be some way within the public system to channel this kind of energy.

My way of thinking on this - as I've explained as nauseum on a couple of these threads, so I'll be brief - is that there's value in setting up schools with different curricula and then allowing mobility (with lotteries rather than selection if there is overflow). That way, people can align themselves with different educational philosophies without the need to spend all that tedious time mucking about creating your own school (which sounds like a total nightmare to me).

But presumably there other ways to do it - any ideas?

Indeed, they are and, because of the marketisation and polarisation of the school system, they have to and good luck to them.

The problem is that they are definitely in the minority. Most of the Free Schools are going to be run but private companies, churches and Toby Young types. Indeed, the key in that interview is the 'cultural capital' remark. Working class parents may very well not have the same sort of cultural capital leaving them in the thrall of well-meaning middle-class parents.

Of course, you could point that accusation at teachers and education professionals but the key difference is that they are qualified professionals with experience in the field to draw upon

Yes, create a school system where there are no privately funded, religious, free, academy or single sex schools that partition one element of society's children away from the others. Provide a decent quality equally across all these schools based on curricula based on evidence-based research and designed by teachers, education professionals and academics. Take education policy out of politicians so that it doesn't become a party political football that changed every 4 years. Educate teachers rather than train them. Educate children rather than deliver curricula to them. Teach children learning skills and the ability to find, assess and use information rather than just handing them information. Educate children in order to fulfil their potential rather than to produce a semi-skilled workforce in order to serve society and 'compete in the worldwide knowledge economy" (or somesuch bollocks). Fund to ridiculous levels. Take money from the armed forces, the rich and big corporation in order to do so. Leave to rest for 20 years. Have another look then.

The problem with your idea is that you will have, even in a catchment area, kids going miles away to get to school (often by car) which has a detrimental impact on their social development, health etc

That doesn't seem like much of a drawback, tbh. Kids in rural areas take buses to school all the time. Hell, I used to when I grew up. Can't say it was especially scarring.

Well, to be fair, secondary schools are probably are similar here or, at least, a bike ride away here. In Britain, primary schools used to usually be a walk away apart from in really rural areas.

That is perhaos the most chilling thing I've ever heard.

Spot on commentary from the Onion

Bored, I'm from East Finchley originally (back when it was the rough end of Finchley, like), and I'm curious to know what mixed, non-denominational, non-selective schools you're on about.

I went to Christ's College, which isn't mixed (and isn't in East Finchley). Bishop Douglass is neither mixed nor non-denominational. Over the border in Haringey there's Fortismere, but its catchment area is minute, and can extend at most a couple of hundred yards into East Finchley.

Schools not in East Finchley but reasonably nearby include St Mick's, Finchley Catholic High and Hasmonean, all of which are single-sex and strictly for various types of Abrahamic cultists.

I can only think of the Compton, which used to be Finchley Manorhill (and isn't in East Finchley either, though it does satisfy the other criteria). If you're not a God-botherer and believe boys and girls shouldn't be segregated, it's surely pretty slim pickings.

You're agreeing with each other aren't you? I think Bored's just used the word paucity when he meant surfeit. That's what I take from the Bath reference, anyway.

Anton Gramski wrote:


OK, I'm confused now. Perhaps he meant that his hackles were rising only until your man specified what kinds of school he was on about.

Yes, exactly that. I knew that there were a lot of good schools but didn't realise that most of them were church, single sex or selective. Once he pointed this out, I was right on board with him especially as he seemed absolutely happy with the primaries

Like I say, perhaps a more ideal path he and his fellow parents could lobby to get some of the schools made into co-ed community schools but, having seen the debacle in Bath in trying to get two of the single sex schools to go mixed, it may be a better to go down his route.

It is a fucked situation generally, really

Gramski, Free Schools will do their own purchasing, which would drive up costs significantly, even if the Free Schools weren't likely to be small. See here for that:

blogs.ft.com/ftdata/2012/06/08/free-and-small/#axzz20zo8iR2D

That small schools make it easier to avoid the blacks is of course a happy coincidence.

Though I deplore Academies, there's at least the possibility that chains will get economies of scale.

Re "what should people like us do?", I'm uncharacteristically in the "no compromise" party. I am a secularist, but I am less bothered in the short term about religious schools (I spent my education entirely in C of E ones) than in losing the integrity of the system forever. I also had 5 years in single sex, and though a younger me would have seen the Inbetweeners as aspiration TV, I can live with single sex in the short term.

So campaign against free schools. And campaign specifically for religious schools to have their religious lessons open to inspectors. The C of E, according to Dawkins, have already conceded that principle.

Where's that in the report, Tubby?

That's my cynicism.

I accept the chap in East Finchley isn't like that but the problem with free schools is that the lack of local accountability means there's a big temptation to set them up to avoid oiks. Smaller catchment areas can avoid council estates.

The funding formula, as set out by Chris Cook in the FT, seems to favour small schools.

Hence I'm cynical.