Rachel Wolf, a former adviser to Michael Gove and the Conservative education team, founded the New Schools Network earlier this month and here she explains its mission. She was also profiled in The Independent last week.
A fortnight ago, we launched a new charity – the New Schools Network – dedicated to helping groups of parents, teachers, charities and other organisations set up new state schools.
This concept of creating new schools has been widely covered in the media (and on ConservativeHome) over the last couple of years, with a particular focus on reforms in Sweden with ‘free schools’ and America with ‘charter schools’. In both countries, parents and other groups have been allowed to set up non-selective state schools, and receive state support for every child in attendance.
British proponents have argued that there will be an enormous response. Sceptics have insisted that no one here will want to start schools. But no one has decided to find out.
It turns out the proponents are right. Since launching the Network we have been overwhelmed by the appetite from parents for the creation of new schools and the desire of providers, teachers and parents themselves to set them up.
We have spent the last few months talking to people across the country, listening to their concerns about their children’s education, and discussing with them how a new system might work best for them.
We have heard from parents who are worried that all the good schools in their local neighbourhood are over-subscribed and that they will be forced to send their child to a school which under-performs. We have heard from others who are worried that they will have to send their child many miles away to the nearest decent school. Others have been worried about issues like class sizes or discipline (you can hear a selection of parents’ views on our website here).
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