Toby Young: 'Free school movement should be all about mavericks like me'

The journalist and author tells Richard Garner why he chose to open a school – and why Michael Gove doesn't want others to follow his lead

Free school pioneer Toby Young today claims the Coalition Government is making it harder for parents to set up and run their own schools as part of its flagship scheme. The journalist and author will see his labours come to fruition this morning as his West London free school opens its doors to pupils for the first time.

However, in an interview with The Independent, he warns that the path to setting up a free school might not be so easy for parents in future. This is because ministers have tightened up the rules – making it almost essential that any potential bidder will need the support of professional educational consultants to plot a way through the bureaucracy,

As a result, parents have turned to academy sponsors such as E-ACT and ARK, the charity set up by hedge fund entrepreneur Arpad Busson, with the result that they end up running the school.

"I think this is a shame," Young said. "I think one of the virtues of the free school policy is that it involves parents in the ongoing life of the school. All the research suggests the more involved they are in their children's education the better the children do.

"ARK, E-ACT and the Harris Foundation are all good at running schools, but at the end of the day the free-school movement should be about mavericks like us setting up an innovative school rather than academy sponsors setting up a chain of 13 schools that are one of a kind."

Young, whose school in Hammersmith, west London, will take 120 first-year secondary school students, said he was not sure whether he would have been successful if he had waited a year to go ahead. "I wanted to be the first to get a funding agreement," he said. "My wife thought it was just down to my competitive instincts but I really thought that – by being first – we would have a better chance."

He said he could see why the new procedures had been brought in.

"The last thing Michael Gove (the Education Secretary) wants is a high- profile free school collapse on his hands," he said. "However, the indirect consequence of the tightening up of the previous process is that it is going to be much easier for the multi-academy sponsors to set up two schools than forgroups like mine."

He revealed that his group had been involved in discussions with groups like CfBT and ARK to see if they could help with the running of the school but – in the end – had decided to go it alone. "We wanted the school to have a particular individual character," he said.

Today's opening marks the culmination of two years of planning. The school will insist its students all study six subjects to GCSE level — English language, English literature, one science, maths, either Latin or a modern foreign language and history. The diet is similar to the new English Baccalaureate promoted by the Government, but will not insist on two sciences.

The school will build to full capacity over five years but has already created great interest from parents, with 500 applying for its 120 places. Under its admissions procedure, half the places are allocated by proximity to the school and the rest by lottery.

Young acknowledges that the school probably has fewer children on free school meals than the average for the neighbourhood but more than the national average. "We want our pupils to be a genuinely diverse group reflecting the social and ethnic mix of the neighbourhood," he said. "We haven't achieved that yet but we hope to achieve it in the next couple of years."

He argues that only if they are truly reflective will they be able to tell whether they have achieved better results through their approach.

The project is probably the one among all the 24 free schools opening this term that has attracted the most controversy – possibly because it has been more in the spotlight through its pioneer's substantial and sometimes abrasive media presence.

However, he says he has established good relations with neighbouring schools and the local authority. The council found him the temporary site the school now occupies (it was formerly a special school) and has arranged for it to move to larger premises in a couple of years. The former head of London Oratory – one of the neighbouring schools, has put his weight behind the project.

"Believe it or not," he says with a slightly quizzically raised eyebrow, "I have been fairly diplomatic in dealing with the local authority and neighbouring schools."

The school acknowledges it will be a long five-year wait until the first students sit their GCSEs to see whether the experiment has succeeded.

Independent Comment
blog comments powered by Disqus
News in pictures
World news in pictures
UK news in pictures
UK news in pictures
From the blogs

“I’m not going to do ANYTHING for you”

Time for the monthly treat from David Hayes, who writes about British politics for the Australian In...

Dish of the Day: Could new brews win over craft beer drinkers?

Cask ale brewers don’t come much bigger than Marston’s. In fact the brewery, which also owns thousan...

Nadine Dorries’s new business: an engineering consultancy that has become a media consultancy

Nadine Dorries talks freely about many things, but not whether she was paid to go on I'm a Cleberity...

Children’s Books: Recommended read – ‘A Monster Calls’ by Patrick Ness

Thirteen-year-old Conor awakes in bed one night to discover that the yew tree outside his house has ...

       
 
iJobs Job Widget
iJobs People

Management Consultant

In the region of £60,000: Kinapse Limited: Kinapse Limited, a London-based lif...

Day In a Page

'To farm I have to rape the countryside. It’s got to be wrong': The true effect of the badger cull

The true effect of the badger cull

'To farm I have to rape the countryside. It’s got to be wrong'
Theatre review: Daniel Radcliffe gives an admirably honest performance in Michael Grandage's The Cripple of Inishmaan

First night: The Cripple of Inishmaan

Daniel Radcliffe gives an admirably honest performance in Michael Grandage's comedy
Girls Guides drop religious reference but pledge to self and the Queen

Guides drop religious reference but pledge to self and the Queen

After 103 years, organisation changes oath to welcome 'all girls, of all faiths, and none'
Steve Tongue: Joe Kinnear was one of the boys and a breath of fresh air... 21 years ago

Steve Tongue

Joe Kinnear was one of the boys and a breath of fresh air... 21 years ago
Chris Froome: Free from 'pain in neck' after Bradley Wiggins' exit

Chris Froome: Free from 'pain in neck' after Wiggins' exit

Sky's lead rider says he is in fantastic form for the Tour and happy pecking order debate is over
Hannah England: I've got the right times – now to focus on the chess

Hannah England: Keeping Track

I've got the right times – now to focus on the chess
Beards, brawn and body art

Beards, brawn and body art

Meet London’s new batch of male models
Scandi-geeks descend on Nordicana for fan-convention

Scandi-geeks descend on Nordicana for fan-convention

British love of shows such as The Bridge, Borgen and The Killing shows no sign of fading
Behind the rhetoric what is really being done to combat desertification?

The Great Green Wall of Africa,

Behind the rhetoric what is really being done to combat desertification?
Laughter Inc: the cheering growth of the chuckle industry

Laughter Inc

The cheering growth of the chuckle industry
The bad science scandal: how fact-fabrication is damaging UK's global name for research

The bad science scandal

How fact-fabrication is damaging UK's global name for research
To the manor born: The female aristocrats battling to inherit the title

Female aristocrats battle to inherit the title

A passionate protest is gathering pace among the women of Britain's aristocracy, who believe that men should no longer automatically inherit the family pile and title.
Love struck: Photographs of JFK's visit to Berlin 50 years ago reveal a nation instantly smitten

In pictures: JFK's visit to Berlin in 1963

Photographer Ulrich Mack accompanied Kennedy on the entire trip. The results are an astonishing record of a watershed moment.
Eat shoots and leaves: Mark Hix gets creative with fresh peas, mangetouts and sugar snaps

Mark Hix gets creative with English peas

English peas and their offsprings, such as mangetouts and sugar snaps, are great tossed into a salad, says our chef.
Ceviche with a smile: Chef Martin Morales has turned South America's elegant cuisine into one of London's hottest food trends

Chef Martin Morales: Ceviche with a smile

Morales has turned South America's elegant cuisine into one of London's hottest food trends