New schools ‘will tackle years of under-achievement for Bradford’

The King’s Science Academy and Rainbow Primary School in Bradford will be among the first wave of free schools to open this term amid questions about how much public money has been invested.

The Department for Education has said the schools will help to raise standards and provide extra places which are needed in the city.

Former private school Batley Grammar is also joining the free school movement and will open its doors on Wednesday as a state school.

The King’s Science Academy and Rainbow Primary are the first free schools to open in the region that have been started from scratch. Both are set to open next Friday in the same building.

King’s Science is a secondary school which will start with 140 pupils in year seven, while Rainbow is a primary which is starting with 31 pupils split between four-year groups. It aims to eventually recruit more than 500 children.

Bradford-born teacher Sajid Hussain has led the creation of the King’s Science Academy which will have a motto of “character and knowledge”.

It is reported to be starting with 15 teaching staff and in future it plans to move to the Lidget Green area.

The Rainbow School has been created by not-for-profit enterprise group ATL, and aims to attract pupils from across the city. ATL chief executive Arshad Javed told the Yorkshire Post they had been looking to base the school in the city centre but had yet to find a suitable site.

A Department for Education spokeswoman said: “Bradford needs school places and there has been historic educational under-achievement. Free schools will raise standards and give all parents – not just the rich – the access to schools with great teaching and strong discipline.”

Mr Javed said the current building had deficiencies but had allowed ATL to get the project started. He added: “We have put out heart and soul into creating this school. Parents are sending their children here because they want a choice.”

Plans for both schools have caused controversy. The Yorkshire Post revealed in January that one of the men involved in the bid to create the Rainbow School, Ayub Ismail, had previously submitted a separate report to Bradford Council arguing in favour of segregated Muslim faith schools.

The plan for the King’s Science Academy caused disruption because it had not been signed off by Ministers by the time Bradford Council was allocating school places. This meant pupils and parents who chose King’s Science Academy were then withdrawn from council-run schools where they had already accepted places.

Two other free school plans in Yorkshire have had their business cases approved – McAuley College Academy, in Hull, which is being led by St Mary’s College, and the Birkenshaw, Birstall and Gomersal Parents Alliance’s plan for a secondary school in Birkenshaw which aims to open in 2013.

McAuley had planned to open this year but was unable to secure a long-term lease on its intended site.

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg is today expected to take credit for preventing free schools being able to run at a profit.

PUPILS RECEIVING OUTSIDE TUITION

ALMOST a quarter of secondary school pupils have received extra tuition outside of the classroom with numbers rising in the last six years, a survey has revealed.

According to the Sutton Trust in 2005, 18 per cent of youngsters said they had received extra help whereas now it is 23 per cent.

The charity’s poll questioned almost 3,000 11 to 16-year-olds. Asian and black families are almost twice as likely to hire a tutor than white families, the survey found.