Only eight of Gove’s free schools sure to open next term

ONLY eight new free schools, including two in West Yorkshire, are certain to open their doors at the start of the next academic year in September.

When he launched the programme - which allows parents, companies or charities to set up schools within the state system but free of council control - last year, Education Secretary Michael Gove said he had received more than 700 expressions of interest.

Now Mr Gove has insisted that the rate of progress had been “phenomenal”. He expects “more than 10” free schools to be ready for the new academic year, but said many more would follow over the following three years.

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The schools with funding agreements are understood to be Batley Grammar School in Kirklees, Bradford Science Academy, Nishkam Free School in Birmingham, St Luke’s C of E Primary School in Camden, north London, Eden Primary School in Haringey, north London, Stour Valley Community School in Suffolk, Free School Norwich, and West London Free School in Hammersmith & Fulham.

The Education Secretary refused to set a target for the creation of free schools, saying: “One of the things I’m chary of is engaging in what the Prime Minister calls dartboard politics, which is allowing an obsession with numbers to supplant a debate about quality.”

The Department for Education has confirmed that it received 323 applications to open free schools, of which some 26 have so far been approved to enter the “pre-opening stage”.

It will be officially confirmed next week that eight schools have signed funding agreements, giving them the green light to take pupils from next term. Channel 4 News research suggested that a further 16 are hopeful of opening in September.

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C4N reported that of the 24 schools hoping to open this year, just two - both primary schools with a combined total of 160 pupil places - were in the 10% poorest boroughs in England. Nine were in the top 50% better-off areas, four of which were existing independent schools applying for state funding under the free school status.

Shadow education secretary Andy Burnham told the programme: “Money is being siphoned out of our schools around the country to pay for a free school programme that actually is going to areas where the greatest challenges don’t exist.”

But Mr Gove said it was “fantastic” that private schools were joining the state system as free schools, telling interviewer Jon Snow: “In effect, we are doing what progressives like you and I have long wanted to do, which is break down the barriers and nationalise private education.”