Education: Parents hope to open small secondary school

Education bosses normally regard secondary schools with less than 500 pupils as being unsustainable.

Campaigners aiming to set up the York Free School, in Holgate, want to run a school that would be half this size.

The coalition Government's flagship free schools policy aims to give parents and teachers the power to open and run their own state-funded school if they are unhappy with the choices in their area.

These would operate with the same freedoms as academies – independent of local council control, and able to determine their own admissions and curriculum.

The York Free School group is looking for support from parents in the community to demonstrate local demand for a new school.

Tim Moat, who is among the parents leading the group, said: "Holgate is very well served for primary schools but we do not have a secondary school that we can call our own. It is not that we are unhappy with the secondary schools on offer. They are good schools and they are not miles and miles away but they are not in our community.

"We want the school to be small for two reasons.

"One is affordability. We think it is more likely that the Government would be able to fund a smaller school.

"The other is that one of things we like about primary school education is that a teacher will know your child. In a secondary school with 1,000-plus pupils there is little chance of this happening."

He said York Council had told him 500 pupils was thought to be the smallest sustainable size a secondary school could operate at while being able to afford a range of specialist subject teachers. The group would explore whether it was possible to employ some staff part-time to allow the school to be smaller.

A site has not yet been identified but the group plans to open it by September 2012, if possible.

The free school policy was a central part of the Conservative Party's election manifesto.

A group of parents in Birkenshaw, Birstall and Gomersal are expected to be among the first in the country to open their own school.