The admissions criteria of secondary Free Schools

Morris, Rebecca

doi:10.1080/03054985.2014.921614

Cited by 8 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 9 publications

(17 reference statements)

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“…The third thematic area is school admissions in the context of parental choice. There has been concern that free schools' admission policies will be socially selective, even where they adhere to the 2012 Admissions Code (Morris, 2014;Stokes, 2014). This adds further weight to the argument that schools should not be allowed to become their own admissions authorities (Coldron, 2015).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Quasi-markets, school diversity and social selection: Analysing the case of free schools in England, five years on

Allen¹,

Higham²

2018

London Review of Education

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The opening of new state schools by non-state actors has intensified debates about social selection and inequality in quasi-markets. This article examines the case of England, where the government allows anyone to apply to open a new 'free school', arguing this will improve social equity. Using data from the National Pupil Database for all 325 free schools established between 2011/12 and 2015/16, we analyse whether the students attending free schools are representative of their local neighbourhoods. We develop the first analysis of whether the specifics of who opens and provides a free school impacts on who attends the school. We also analyse whether opening a free school has an impact on neighbouring schools. We find that free schools are located in areas with above-average deprivation but admit intakes that are more affluent than the average for the neighbourhoods from which they recruit. This is particularly the case for primary free schools, which also recruit students with above-average prior attainment. There is no evidence that free schools become more representative as they admit additional year groups. Significantly, we find that all categories of free school providers have opened schools whose populations are more affluent than their neighbourhoods, with the exception of academy chains. We also find that the opening of a free school leads to a concentrated loss of pupils at the closest school, except in cities, but we do not identify an impact on the student composition of neighbouring schools. Discussing the reasons for this, we conclude that free schools are socially selective and reproduce socio-economic inequalities.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Quasi-markets, school diversity and social selection: Analysing the case of free schools in England, five years on

Allen¹,

Higham²

2018

London Review of Education

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“…As a result of the recent introduction of the Free Schools policy, however, there is still little known about the families that they are attracting, the children that they are admitting and the methods that they are using to do this. An evaluation of the admissions policies used by secondary Free Schools suggested that although the schools were adhering to the 2012 Admissions Code legislation and, in many cases, were using similar criteria to that of their LAs, a number of the schools were using oversubscription criteria that could lead to further segregation (Morris, ). Early analyses of Free School intakes have shown that pupils are more likely to travel further to school than children at neighbouring maintained or academy schools and less likely to have English as an Additional Language (EAL) [National Audit Office (NAO), ].…”

Section: Free School Intakes In Englandmentioning

confidence: 99%

Free Schools and disadvantaged intakes

Morris

2015

British Educational Res J

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The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that:• a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Free Schools and disadvantaged intakes AbstractThe Free Schools policy in England has led to the opening of a number of new autonomous state-funded schools. This article uses data from the Annual Schools Census to present the proportions of socioeconomically disadvantaged children attending the first three waves of these schools. It updates and builds on previous work that focused on the student composition of the first wave of Free Schools which opened in 2011 (Gooch, 2011). The analysis compares the Free School intakes with other local schools and Local Authority (LA) data and seeks to establish whether the schools are taking an equal share of disadvantaged children in relation to their nearby competitors. Differences emerge between the different waves of schools with those that opened in 2011 generally underrepresenting disadvantaged children. In the second and third waves the picture is more mixed. It is also the case that Free Schools with a faith designation or an alternative or specialist curriculum appear particularly likely to have proportionally fewer disadvantaged children than might be expected based on their location. The potential impacts of having an increasing number of new schools with unbalanced intakes are discussed.

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“…There are currently many different types of schools within England, a "fragmented" landscape (West & Wolfe, 2019) in terms of differences in governance and funding. This can present problems for parents in researching the options that are available for their children and comparisons between types of school become inevitable (Morris, 2014;Morris & Perry, 2019). Schools are promoting themselves (Ball, 2017) in a manner whereby "identity" becomes important in order to attract pupils.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“It’s about portraying that we are organised …” A case study looking at understanding identity changes within one Free school’s Physical Education and School Sport (PESS) programme

Williams

Burrows²,

Williams

2021

Educational Review

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This research looked at the management of identity change within Physical Education and School Sport (PESS) at one of the first Free schools in England. Opened as a new institution within an unfamiliar setting, the school had to contend with limited resources for an ambitious programme based upon a full complement of examination courses and an emphasis on prestigious team sports using a traditional public-school model. A single case study methodology revealed that subsequent changes in identity stemmed from staffing issues, alongside a shift in personal philosophies towards a more inclusive ideology. Both senior management and middle management agreed that PESS needed to offer more sports to more pupils while still contributing towards the school's "knowledge rich" achievement-based ethos. Using Goffman's concept of "impression management", changes are explained by the analysis of a team "performance" communication to parents, identified by interviewees as key policy actors in the life of the school. This approach has been successful in justifying change, a finding that will help to understand the extent to which parental expectations are managed at Free schools. However, elements of traditionalism remain within the school's games-based PESS programme and possibilities for innovation are interpreted by policy actors as necessitating changes in content rather than within pedagogy or curriculum design. Recommendations for future study include the need to fully understand the freedoms associated with Free schools, particularly expectations for curriculum innovation.

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The admissions criteria of secondary Free Schools

Cited by 8 publications

References 9 publications

Quasi-markets, school diversity and social selection: Analysing the case of free schools in England, five years on

Quasi-markets, school diversity and social selection: Analysing the case of free schools in England, five years on

Free Schools and disadvantaged intakes

“It’s about portraying that we are organised …” A case study looking at understanding identity changes within one Free school’s Physical Education and School Sport (PESS) programme

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