16th September 2015 10:00
By Blue Tutors
The government has announced plans to expand the number of free schools in England. The prime minister has said that he expects to create 500 more schools over the next five years, with 52 new free schools being opened this term. Currently about 300 out of about 22,000 schools are free schools. The Department for Education has said that their policy on schools is ‘crystal clear’, their plan being to open schools which employ classical learning models of logic, grammar and rhetoric. The policy is designed to increase the number of good or outstanding schools in order to improve the quality of education available to children in England.
The move to introduce a wave of new free schools has been met with a cool respond from teaching unions, who say that there is no evidence to support the fact that free schools can achieve better results than other state secondaries. The NUT said that the government had fudged both regulations and results in order to push through the free school policy, with no evidence to support them. Free schools are not required to follow the national curriculum and are giving flexibility over staffing, leading to concerns that standards would be inconsistent. The National Association of Head Teachers warned that delays and big plans for new schools detracted from the main problem, that of staff shortages and lack of places.
These sentiments have been echoed by shadow education secretary Tristram Hunt, who said that the government should focus their efforts on addressing the shortage in teachers. He warned that the focus on free schools was diverting attention away from the bigger problem of the teacher recruitment crisis. Pupils in England are increasingly being taught by non-specialists or supply teachers. Hunt warned that this problem is likely to continue whilst teaching conditions and pay are so poor. He said that improving the standard of the teaching profession should be a priority for all education ministers.