• A free school is a privately run school paid for by the taxpayer. The group setting up a free school must be a charity at the time it is funded.  We understand that many ‘free school’ trusts are the charitable arms of profitmaking companies, who then contract the running of the school to the parent company.
  

• Free Schools are a project funded by public money formerly earmarked for LA school budgets.
  
• The Harnessing Technology Fund was eliminated and given to the Standards and Diversity Fund, which is part of the pot of money for Free Schools.
  
• The Building Schools for the Future program was to help rebuild and repair dilapidated schools – it was cut by Michael Gove without consultation – a cut later found to be an ‘abuse of power’ by a judicial review, but which stood nonetheless.
  
• Remaining capital funds for schools were slashed to almost 80% in some places.
  

In other words, the funding for the most vulnerable schools in the most vulnerable areas is being given to companies so they can establish schools which are most certainly going to benefit the better off who have the time and resources to set up their own schools.

• Free Schools don’t have to hire qualified teachers.  The DfE wants to really ‘toughen up’ teacher training in order to improve standards – yet are simultaneously supporting a policy where qualified teachers are not required.  This does not appear consistent.

• Free Schools can have their own admissions criteria. The admissions criteria and exceptions to current regulation are in the Funding Agreements – which are not being made public.
  

• Free Schools are not required to uphold teacher pay and conditions standards that apply to the members of the teaching profession. Interestingly converter acadmies (existing schools becoming academies) are sent a letter saying that if they intend to uphold pay and conditions, this will reflect badly upon their application.  Free schools are academies and it so will be interesting to see if this happens with free schools as well.  But – Why have this stance? How does it benefit children?
  

• Free schools have to teach all of the main subjects, just as every other school.  Free school like to say they are free from the National Curriculum but the requirements to teach core subjects apply to all schools including free schools. Now that league tables are expanding and the Ebacc has been established, schools are essentially required to focus on certain subjects in order to ‘compete’ in the tables.   If the National Curriculum is holding children back, why not ‘free’ all schools from it?
  

• Free schools are free from Local Authority control.  Free schools are run by governing bodies which are appointed by the trustees – and can include those trustees.  Free Schools not legally accountable in any way to the taxpayers, parents or community. They are accountable only to the Secretary of State. Local Authorities don’t control schools – they provide admissions coordination, training, and a route for redressing parental complaint. Local schools have governing bodies which are both elected (by parents and staff) as well as appointed by the Local Authority, making the entire school accountable to the parents and community it serves.

• Planning requirements are being waived so that schools can be created out of inadequate buildings – and once open as schools, they can do a lot of ‘permitted development’ to make the building fit to be a school without planning consent being required Councils are strongly encouraged by Government to assist in this because the Planning Inspectorate will otherwise step in.  It is poor neighbourhood policy and poor economic planning – if normal planning requirements are obviated by these Government imposed exemptions, and afterward there is a local impact requiring remediation, such as traffic calming, Government documents state that Local authorities will have to pay for it – even though they realise the Authority may not have a budget to do so.

Read a bit about how free schools fit into the Academies Act

Or read a bit more about the Local Authority role in establishing free schools