Free school opens with just eight pupils on its books

A GOVERNMENT-backed free school which has been given £3m of funding has opened its doors with just eight pupils in a Yorkshire city facing a major shortage of school places.
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Campaigners have questioned why the Department for Education (DfE) has supported the creation of a secondary school with such low numbers in its first year.

However, the Leeds Jewish Free School has said its roll will rise to 175 over time and that the scheme is providing the city’s Jewish community with the school it has wanted for decades.

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The school is based on the site of the existing Jewish Brodetsky Primary, in Alwoodley, with the same headteacher, Jeremy Dunford. Teaching staff are being brought in from another Leeds school, Rodillian Academy, to provide secular teaching while Jewish studies will be provided by Brodetsky’s rabbi, Jason Kleiman.

The new free school is currently based in a refurbished part of the Brodetsky site. Building work at the school to create the finished £3.1m premises will be completed next spring.

Mr Dunford said the school would enjoy economies of scale as it was partnered with the primary school and it expects to be filling its 25 year-seven places by autumn 2015.

However, opponents of free schools have voiced concern as Leeds is expected to face a shortage of secondary places by 2017, with seven new schools needed.

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National Union of Teachers Leeds branch official Richard Raftery said: “Academies and free schools are Michael Gove’s vanity projects and he has pumped lots of money into them to the detriment of local authorities.

“Local authorities aren’t allowed to open new community schools themselves because there is now a presumption that all new schools have to be either free schools or academies.

“We have real concerns where free schools are opening in places where the demand is seemingly not there, irrespective of who is behind the school, especially in a city like Leeds where there is going to be enormous demand in other parts of the city.”

Pat Payne, whose own “dyslexia- friendly” free school bid in Leeds had to be withdrawn because too few parents signed up, has also criticised the DfE.

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She said: “I have no issue with the school itself and I have defended the idea of free schools to the hilt in the past but it does just seem grossly unfair that we lost our support from the DfE when we had more pupils signed up for a primary school.

“There is a question mark about how a school can offer a broad secondary curriculum when it starts with eight pupils.”

Councillor Dan Cohen, the chairman of the board of directors at the Leeds Jewish Free School, said: “People ask me if I am disappointed to start with eight. I am not. I am delighted that the school has opened.”

He said that for years Jewish children have been forced to travel to Manchester to attend a faith-based state secondary school. “Over the course of their school life these children have been spending a whole school year on the bus,” he added.

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Mr Cohen said there was a history of Jewish schools starting small and continuing to grow.

“From day one the vision for this school has been to offer excellence in education. You do this by employing highly qualified teachers with subject specialisms.

“We are a small school and could not employ the number and calibre of staff we wanted ourselves so the plan has always been to work with a first class education partner.”

He said the DfE had been robust in testing the sustainability of the free school plan.

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A DfE spokeswoman said: “With the proposers’ record of successfully driving up standards in the area, we are confident that the school will quickly build a strong reputation and attract more pupils.”

The free school is one of six to open across Yorkshire this year and 12 which have been set up in the region overall since 2011.

A report to Leeds City Council this week reveals that the city faces shortages of both secondary and primary school places by 2017.

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