Obstruction overruled

The Spectator’s Schools Revolution conference is being held on Tuesday next week. One of the speakers, Mark Lehain, writes below about his experience setting up a free school. Other speakers include Michael Gove, Michelle Rhee and Barbara Bergstrom, all of whom will take questions from the floor. There are still tickets available: to book, click here.

When I’m asked why I’m setting up a free school, or why I think they’re necessary, I tell a story about a Trades Union Congress meeting on the subject that I went to in December 2010, a few months into our campaign to open a new school in Bedford.

I knew the teachers’ unions were totally opposed to the government’s education reforms, so I wasn’t expecting any enthusiasm — but I was very surprised to hear the TUC give the best reason I’ve ever heard to support the ‘free schools’ policy.

Following the usual welcoming words from the stage there was a Q&A session about educational reform. One man stood up and made the following statement:

‘I come from Bedford where one of these free schools is being set up,’ he said. ‘The people behind this school claim that they will recruit the poorest students. And they also say they are aiming to ensure that 100 per cent of their students get five good GCSEs including English and maths.’

Before the poor man could get to his question, the entire room burst into laughter. What was so funny? Horrifyingly, it turned out that to the union representatives in the room, the idea that a school full of working class pupils could achieve five good GCSEs was so ridiculous as to be laughable. ‘What a ridiculous idea!’ they all said to each other. ‘How can you set a target like that when you will be teaching working class or minority ethnic kids? Either these free school enthusiasts are deluded, or they’re liars who really just want to recruit middle-class students.’

There is a lot to improve — no doubt about that. By the age of 16, students have had 12 years of school and more than 14,000 hours of lessons, yet only around half hit the benchmark standard. Can you think of any other £90 billion industry that is allowed such a failure rate? I’m often asked why I, a maths teacher with no experience of being a headmaster, think I’m qualified to set up a new school. I challenge these doubters to justify why things should stay as they are.

Local parents and the wider community in Bedford and Kempston seem mostly delighted about our school. There is a definite feeling amongst parents and teachers alike that the Local Authority has ignored people for too long. A recent ‘Vision for Education’ from the Council was published to widespread derision and bafflement as it lacked any — er, how can I put this? — vision for education.

We have been able to show parents that there are alternatives, and people are genuinely excited by the idea — we are now well over-subscribed for this September’s opening, with many parents asking how they can apply for places in our second year of operation already.

Perhaps even more excitingly, following in our footsteps there are now at least three other free school proposals for the area currently being considered by the Department for Education, including one from a school at which I used to teach. Parents and professionals don’t need politicians any more — we’re doing it for ourselves.

If there’s bad news, it’s that the journey so far has not been without its challenges. We picked up a small handful of quite vicious opponents, mainly linked to certain local party associations and teaching unions.

Interestingly enough most of them don’t live in our area; some have even sent their own children to private schools. But this didn’t stop them making extremely nasty and personal attacks, and ignoring our honest answers to their questions. What a wonderful example for children!

The other big hurdles have been finding a suitable site and getting planning permission for it. In this respect, we have experienced the ways that Local Authorities can slow down and stymie free schools, even though they don’t have any explicit veto over the process.

We lost crucial months whilst we had discussions with the LA about the possibility of a site being released as a result of a restructure of schools in the area. After a series of meetings, we were finally presented with a plan that bore no relation to the one we had spent the previous weeks discussing. This led to us delaying our opening by a year.

Another key challenge is getting the right type of planning permission granted for proposed sites. A Government review of planning guidance backed off introducing the automatic approval of ‘change of use’ applications by Free Schools. It instead opted for a less ambitious ‘presumption to approve’ in schools’ favour. It has taken many months of discussions with planners to (only now) reach a point where they should recommend that we are granted approval on our site — and this is for a building that has already been used for education for the best part of a decade!

The Department for Education and our local MP have been brilliant — but the LA has all the important local assets and an army of well-paid officers at its disposal. No wonder it can bog you down. That said, we are opening this September, with 200 students and 25 staff, and the past two years really have been amazing. I’ve a lot more grey hairs now, and I’m sad at the cynicism of people who should know better. Yet we stand on the brink of opening a school that will, directly and through friendly competition and collaboration, transform the lives of the kids in our town. How awesome is that?