Concerns mount over free schools' ability to meet local needs

According to delegates at the annual National Children and Adult Services Conference, issues such as immigration and a population boom are putting pressure on local school places.

In Oxfordshire, immigration into the city and a rising birth rate means 700 more reception places will be required by 2014.

But Frances Craven, Oxfordshire County Council’s deputy director for education and early intervention, warned that only one of the three new free schools that have been approved in the area is actually creating school places where they are needed.

“One of them helps with the issue we’ve got of pressure on places, but another doesn’t address that issue at all,” she said. “It’s not in the right place. That is a real challenge as we don’t have the ability to influence that.”

The third is a European school. “That hasn’t really solved our problem around places because that school won’t suit everybody,” Craven added.

Her concerns were echoed by Ralph Berry, lead member for children at Bradford Metropolitan District Council. “We need places where people are in a formal structure that is cohesive and integrated,” he said.

“Primary schools need to have a defined catchment and be in a relationship with the community. Having a primary school on an industrial estate or in a fire station, which is what we’ve got, is going to be a challenge.

“I want to know we’re going to be able to manage this system in a way that doesn’t mean we end up with unhealthy outcomes such as schools in the wrong places.”

Linda Kemeny, lead member for children and learning at Surrey County Council, said the council had to create an extra 1,500 new primary and reception places this September to meet growing demands. But she warned that free schools risk unbalancing the local system.

“One free school opened in September in a disused telephone exchange in a totally unsuitable area, that next year will put pressure on our local, outstanding-rated local authority primaries,” said Kemeny.

“We are really going to suffer if these free schools get parked in very unsuitable places.”

However, Tom Philpott, head of partnerships at the New Schools Network, said his organisation is working to influence potential new free schools about the implications of where they locate themselves.

He added said there were many groups of people looking to set up free schools in areas where there is a demand for school places.

“The groups that are dominated by teachers motivated by a particular vision of education, are looking at that type of education and are less wedded to an individual area,” he said. “They are looking at where there is need and high levels of deprivation.”