Exclusive: Three free schools in Yorkshire backed for September opening

The Department for Education has announced that Batley Grammar School and the King’s Science Academy in Bradford will be among the first eight free schools to be guaranteed to open in September.

The Yorkshire Post can also reveal that the Bradford-based Rainbow Primary School plan has also had its business case approved and is now in final stages of talks over its funding agreement. If these are successful the school being backed by ATL Yorkshire, a Bradford-based not-for-profit business and enterprise support organisation, could also open in September.

Free schools are a key policy of the coalition Government which is encouraging groups of parents and teachers to set up their own state-funded schools whenever they are unhappy with the existing choice in their community.

There have been more than 300 applications to the Government to set up new state schools under these reforms, including 34 from the Yorkshire region. However just eight are guaranteed to open in September nationally, including two from West Yorkshire.

Batley Grammar is an existing independent school which has applied to become state funded to secure its future and allow it to expand. It plans to increase its number of pupils from 350 to around 600 as a result of becoming a publicly funded school.

King’s Science Academy is a plan for a new secondary school to serve the Lidget Green area of Bradford which is facing a shortage of school places. The plan is led by Bradford-born teacher Sajid Hussain who is on the Future Leaders programme – a scheme that aims to fast track ambitious teachers into headships in schools serving deprived communities.

The Department for Education will announce on Monday that it has backed the business case of the Rainbow Free School, a plan for a primary school in Bradford.

One of the group’s co-founders Ayub Ismail has previously told the Yorkshire Post that the group aimed to develop a credible track record for raising standards in Bradford before looking to set up more primaries elsewhere.

However Bradford Council’s executive member for schools, Ralph Berry, has voiced concern that Mr Ismail had previously written a report to the authority arguing for Muslim pupils in the city to be educated separately in faith schools.

Another free school bid which had planned to open this September was the McAuley College Academy, in Hull, being led by an existing secondary school in the city, St Mary’s College.

However an announcement on the group’s Facebook page said its plans were being put back by a year because they had been unable to secure a lease on their intended building.

Ministers have also approved the business case of the Birkenshaw, Birstall and Gomersal Parents Alliance’s plan for a new secondary school in Birkenshaw which aims to open in 2013.

The only other planned free school in the region to be accepted onto the business case stage of the programme, the Three Valleys Independent Academy in Rotherham, has been entered into a new application process for schools wanting to open in 2012.

Education Secretary Michael Gove has dismissed claims that he is disappointed with the number of free schools coming through in the first year of the programme.

He said groups who had succeeded in gaining approval to open in September 2011 had been working “incredibly hard”.