Free schools in the Big Society: the motivations, aims and demography of free school proposers

‘Critical friends’: exploring arm’s length actor relationships to local government in education

“…Findings here build on previous research by the author which explored the extent to which CAs were 'policy subjects' in their school choice work at the same time as they were policy 'actors' -co--opted into central government discourses treating parents in individualised terms and sidestepping issues of social class and inequality between schools and families (Exley, 2013). Findings are also reminiscent of those reported recently by Higham (2014) on the discourses of Free School proposers in England. Such proposers have expressed broad commitments to 'inclusion' but are relatively silent on what such inclusion might entail in practical terms, raising 'critical concern for who is being represented and served' (Higham, 2014, 137).…”

“…Building on this and by way of broad context, here it must first be noted that, alongside concrete change, traditions of public administration inside English local government generally have for some decades now been subject to numerous overarching 'discourses of derision' (Ball, 1990). 'Loony left' LAs have been delegitimised as 'problems' -inflated in size, challenging central government authority (John, 2014;Travers, 1986;Loughlin, 2003), enjoying complacent 'producer capture' (Higham, 2014) and dominated by 'dogmatic municipal socialists' (Clarke and Newman, 1997, 16). Processes of depoliticisation have occurred, wherein the traditional local state, its democratic infrastructures and ideological underpinnings have increasingly been conceived as an outdated 'political' order in need of reinvention (Flinders and Wood, 2014;Hay, 2007;Crouch, 2004).…”

Free Schools in England: ‘Not Unlike other Schools’?

“…Yet little is known about actual practices that have been introduced in these schools, and whether they differ substantially from those found in other schools. The few studies of free schools that have been conducted are concerned with types of free schools' proposers and providers (Higham 2014a;Walford 2014a;Walford 2014b), governance of the free schools (Hatcher 2011;Higham 2014b), the policy and politics of free schools analysed from a comparative perspective (Wiborg, 2015;Hatcher 2011), and selective access to free schools (Morris 2014;Green et al 2015;Gorard 2016). Hypotheses about the effects of free schools on pupils' educational and other achievements will be evaluated when pupils complete their trajectories through school life.…”

“…Free schools were introduced as a subset of the Academies by the Conservative-Liberal Democrat Coalition government, following the General Election in 2010. The government made it possible for non-state providers to set up their own independent, state-funded schools in order to create more choice, competition and innovation (Higham 2014a). In the words of the free school initiator in England, former Education Secretary of State, Michael Gove, 'Innovation, diversity and flexibility are the heart of the free schools policy…' ( House of Commons Hansard Debates for 15 Nov, 2010).…”

Free Schools and disadvantaged intakes

“…While Free Schools are a type of academy and are also required to adhere to the Admissions Code (DfE, ), they differ in the sense that the majority of them are completely new institutions. Some commentators have suggested that those setting them up will predominantly represent white, middle‐class families (Stokes et al ., ; Vasagar & Shepherd, ) and research into the demographics of Free School proposers has shown that those involved were on average not seeking to serve disadvantaged communities (Higham, ).…”