Free school hires post-graduates to relieve teachers of marking

Instead King’s Science Academy in Bradford employs a team of university students to assess work in subjects which they have studied at degree level.

Sajid Hussain Raza, the school’s principal and founder, said the move allowed King’s to ask the teachers to work longer days – from 8am until 4.30pm enabling its pupils to fit in as many as 10 extra sessions a week.

The school’s end-of-year tests will be externally assessed and the marking team go through the homework with teachers, according to Mr Hussain Raza.

King’s which took on its first group of 11 and 12-year-old pupils in September, has set itself ambitious academic targets to match the top 25 per cent of state schools in the country at GCSE.

The school is focused on core academic subjects and will expect every pupil to take the exams needed for an English Baccalaureate – awarded to students who get at least C or above in English, maths, two sciences, a modern language and either history or geography.

From year seven, pupils starting GCSE level work. Mr Hussain Raza told the Yorkshire Post this was not being done with a view to taking exams early but to ensure as many pupils as possible get A* and A grades.

The extended school day at King’s means pupils study nine lessons in science and six language lessons a week.

There is also a major focus on literacy with a compulsory reading programme of 30 minutes a day at school and another 30 minutes expected from students as homework.

Mr Hussain Raza, a Bradford-born Oxford graduate who has spent more than a decade working in schools in challenging circumstances, says all pupils should be able to excel at an academic curriculum.

He said: “I was at the bottom of the class at 11 and 14. I would not have had the chance to go to Oxford if I had not been taught an academic curriculum.”

He warned that it was not be acceptable for schools to deliver pass rates of 25 to 30 per cent of pupils achieving five A* to C at GCSE including English and maths

“At the moment around 50 per cent of pupils achieve five A* to C including English and maths and 15 per cent get the English Baccalaureate. What sort of standard is that?”

Free schools are a key education policy of the coalition Government which is encouraging groups of teachers, parents, community groups and existing schools to set up new state funded schools if they can prove there is parental demand. King’s was one of three free schools to open in Yorkshire in September along with the Rainbow Primary, run by enterprise organisation ATL in Bradford, and Batley Grammar which converted from the private sector to receive state funding.

Mr Hussain Raza said: “The free school movement is absolutely fantastic. It empowers teachers to be innovative. Teachers with ideas and strategies which they know they can deliver. It allows schools to customise solutions to an area’s needs.”

He cites releasing teachers from marking homework on a daily basis as an example of this. He also believes the extra 10 sessions pupils have been doing at King’s each week had allowed students to do make major progress in the core subjects.

Teaching staff at the school from its five departments: English, maths, science, humanities and languages each spend one day a week working late to provide homework support to pupils who need it.

The school also provides a free minibus service for pupils and free breakfasts.