| Established | 2011 |
|---|---|
| Type | Free School |
| Religion | Secular |
| Headteacher | Richard Clutterbuck |
| Founder | Bristol Free School Trust |
| Location | Burghill Road Bristol BS10 6NQ England |
| Students | 80 (as of September 2011[update]) |
| Gender | Coeducational |
| Ages | 11–16 |
| Colours | Blue, White and Red |
| Website | www.bristolfreeschool.org.uk |
Bristol Free School is a Free School that opened in Brentry, Bristol, England in September 2011. It is one of first 24 new Free Schools to open in England.[1] As of September 2011[update], the secondary school has 80 year 7 pupils.[2] Once fully open it will cater for pupils aged 11 to 16. It is located at a former Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) and Environment Agency site, which was converted for use by the school.
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The school was proposed following a 20-year parental campaign. The campaign group, Parents Voice,[3] wanted to open a secondary school either at an Adult Education Centre at Stoke Lodge, or on the former St Ursula's School site, to serve the Westbury-on-Trym, Stoke Bishop, Sneyd Park and Henleaze districts of north west Bristol which had no nearby state secondary school. However they quickly ran in to problems with local residents near Stoke Lodge who wanted no development and Bristol City Council, who wanted St Ursula's for a primary school only.[4] Initial approval for the school's plan and business case was given by the Department for Education in November 2010.[5] Final approval was given in May 2011.[6]
In January 2011, 417 members of the community signed a petition to ask Bristol City Council to change their minds and allow a secondary school on the St Ursula's site.[7] Following this and other representations, Bristol City Council Cabinet gave an "agreement in principle" to allowing Bristol Free School to move to St Ursula's in 2012, in a split-site arrangement with a new Primary Academy
The school, which is secular, intends to have a "social mix" and is non-selective. The original plan was to open the school with 150 year 7 pupils, accommodating up to 750 pupils once it is fully open.[6] At opening, the school had 80 pupils.[2]
The headteacher Richard Clutterbuck and a trust consisting of Parents Voice and the Russell Education Trust, which was established by the school improvement company Education London, run the school.[8] The magazine EducationInvestor reports that Education London are setting up the school.[9]
In July 2011, the school was granted planning permission to use a former Environment Agency and DEFRA site on Burghill Road,[10] in the neighbouring area of Brentry within the Southmead electoral ward.[11][12] The school had intended to move to the former St Ursula's School site in September 2012, but it was confirmed in October 2011 it would remain at the Brentry site.[13]
The Head of the North Bristol Head's and Principal's Association, Clare Bradford, declared that if funding was approved by the DfE then she would seek a judicial review and legal action. She put this in a letter to Michael Gove, the Secretary of State for Education. She has claimed that they have been established simply for middle class parents as more than one third of all free schools are opening in affluent areas. The Association have also supported her claims.[14]
The Headmistress of nearby Henbury School, a local comprehensive school that has served the community since 1956, stated that "We already have around 145 surplus places and other secondary schools in the area also have places going, so this free school is just not necessary,” and “Next year we would normally expect to attract an intake of 150 or 160 pupils, but I think if the Bristol Free School opens we will struggle to get 120 pupils. The fewer pupils I have, the smaller the range of subjects I can teach, it is as simple as that." [15]
The Bristol Free School Trust received criticism from Bristol City Council Leader, Barbara Janke, after they declared that following changes to the admissions code, they would not be offering places to Oasis School Westbury Senior Phase pupils after they originally said that they would. This left many children without a school for September and it was a very late date in the year for this to happen. This was announced on the 20th May 2011.[16]
The Leader of Bristol's Labour Party in the council, Peter Hammond, said that the possible damage to other local existing school had to be taken into consideration and should be looked at.
The Free School Policy came under fire from Ed Balls, the former Secretary for Education. He claims it will create a “two-tier” education system with the best pupils and teachers being “creamed off” and “poached” for academies and free schools, while money would be siphoned off from existing schools to pay for them and children in struggling local authority comps would be yet further deprived. “I fear”, he said piously, “that it will turn out to be deeply, deeply unfair.”
The policy of free schools is copied from a similar Swedish style of Free Schools. However the Swedish National Agency for Education, has said, “choice in the school system has led to a tendency to segregate in terms of pupils’ sociocultural background, performance and ethnic background.” Others have criticised the policy of free schools due to the fact that they segregate pupils. There are religious free schools which are being set up and will be specifically for pupils of that religion.
The President of the National Union of Teachers, Nina Franklin said, “We are disgusted at Michael Gove’s lack of regard for education in Bristol and in particular for the local community schools, which will suffer because the Government has agreed to the wishes of a group of middle class parents who won’t accept that their children would be perfectly well served at Bristol community schools.”[17]
The Burghill Road site, which DEFRA holds on a 39 year lease, had been earmarked by the Government Property Unit to rehouse on a single site over 1,000 civil servants based in nearly 60 buildings in Bristol, prospectively saving more than £6 million per year. The use of the site by the school will delay this rationalisation.[18]
The post code area of BS9 has five primary schools, all of which have received Ofsted inspection reports that rated them either "Good" or "Outstanding". The choices for children moving up to secondary school have been private education; to go to St Katherine's in Pill, which has a "good" Ofsted report,[19] but is over 7 miles (11 km) away and across the local authority boundary in North Somerset; or Henbury School, which is nearly 2 miles (3.2 km) away and has in recent years been in "special measures".[19] The result of this situation is that local children have been dispersed across more than 20 secondary schools, and a 30 miles (48 km) radius – from Somerset to South Gloucestershire. Over 300 families with children at local primaries were surveyed by Parents' Voice in conjunction with Bristol City Council in July 2010 and 73% stated that they wanted to send their children to a new, local secondary school if it were to be created.[3]
Whilst it has been argued that Bristol Free School will be an "exclusive school for middle class children", Bristol Free School Trust designed and published an admissions policy that prioritises 20% of places for children in the areas of Southmead and Sea Mills, both of which are economically disadvantaged areas of Bristol.[20]
Toby Young, Daily Telegraph journalist and Trustee of West London Free School, countered a threatened Judicial Review and legal action from Clare Bradford the Headteacher of Henbury School, who is also leader of the North Bristol Head's and Principal's Association, in an article published in June 2011.[21] "To begin with, it’s just a flat-out lie that the Bristol Free School is “aimed at middle-class families”. Its admissions policy gives priority to children with particular social needs, something the school isn’t obliged to do by law, and the catchment area includes some of the more deprived parts of Bristol, such as Southmead and Sea Mills. Perhaps what Ms Bradford has in mind by “aimed at middle-class families” is that the school states on its website that it will have high academic standards. Critics of the West London Free School have made the same point about our ethos, claiming the emphasis on academic attainment will discourage working-class families from applying. It will do nothing of the kind, of course. Working-class parents are every bit as interested in securing an academically rigorous education for their children as middle-class parents – in some cases, more so – and to claim otherwise is patronising nonsense."
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