Ideology and school place planning do not go together. This was illustrated yesterday on national offer day for primary school places. In London, five per cent of parents did not receive an offer of a school place at any of the schools that they had applied for. In Reading, one in four parents missed out on their first choice. The shortage of primary places has been made worse by Michael Gove’s free school programme, which is providing extra places in parts of the country that do not need them.
The free school programme has diverted much needed capital resources from areas that have the greatest need for additional primary school places. In December 2013 the National Audit Office published ‘Establishing Free Schools’, which showed that two thirds of all the places (primary and secondary) created in new free schools have been diverted away from areas of high and severe need for primary places. Not only is this ideologically driven approach wasting public money at a time of immense pressure on public finances, the shortage of primary school places is causing distress to parents with young children. Starting primary school can be an anxious time, and parents don not need further worry about whether their child will have a school place.
Tristram Hunt, Labour’s shadow secretary of state for education, has been right to criticise David Cameron for failing this generation of families. In the run-up to the 2010 general election, Cameron pledged to provide small schools and smaller class sizes. The reality is very different. There is more than double the number of infants in class sizes of more than 30 and three times as many ‘titan’ primary schools, with more than 800 children, than in 2010. The question Hunt should now be asking the prime minister is what action he will be taking on the failure of his secretary of state for education to meet his statutory duties.
Gove has failed in his core duty of providing sufficient school places. He should be held to account by the prime minister. He has wasted public money. He cannot blame his civil servants. For decades the Department for Education has had highly experienced civil servants working on school place planning with local authority officials across the country. The system has worked well under governments of different parties but it cannot function effectively if ministers refuse to listen to the advice they are being given.
Gove’s free school programme has been beset with problems of financial irregularities, poor teaching and ineffective leadership. Any politician who suggested that unqualified doctors could set up a hospital would be dismissed as being both ridiculous and dangerous. Yet Gove passionately believes that unqualified teachers are best placed to educate our children. The free school programme is an ideological experiment that has failed.
Some educationalists will attack Labour for its creation of city academies as the precursor to free schools, while those on the right will criticise Labour for abandoning parental choice. Hunt and his team must not give ground to either. Radical solutions were required to address the chronic underperformance of many inner-city comprehensives when Labour came to office in 1997. City academies largely replaced failing schools or provided much needed school places in boroughs such as Hackney, where there was an acute shortage of places.
Schools need to command the confidence of parents. Schools that do not receive a significant number of first and second choice applications need to gain the trust and confidence of local families. Labour politicians should never expect parents to send their children to schools that they would not be happy for their children to attend.
Gove will argue that Labour opponents of free schools oppose the creation of successful free schools such as School 21 in Newham, set up by former Labour adviser and headteacher Peter Hyman, and Toby Young’s West London free school, which has proved incredibly popular with parents. The success of these schools owes more to the individuals involved than a government policy that has been beset with problems.
The issue that Hunt and his shadow team need to think hard about is how to encourage both innovation and effective planning of places within the state education system. As Hyman says in his book ‘One Out Of Ten’, all state schools should be able to innovate and try different approaches to education, not just academies. Groups of parents in south London have applied to the free school programme to set up a school for autistic children and a bilingual primary school for children who speak German. Such proposals have been created by parents who feel that a different type of primary school may better meet their children’s needs, but at the same time want to work with their local councils. Collaboration and effective engagement with parents is the way forward.
The immediate task for Hunt is to relentlessly pursue Cameron and Gove for letting down families and wasting taxpayers’ money. Parents do not want their children educated in large classes and in primary schools that have 800 small children. Rightwing ideological dogma and school place planning do not go together.
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Sally Prentice is cabinet member for culture and leisure in Lambeth. She tweets @SallyPrentice
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Photo: David Gilmoure