Exclusive: Disarray as launch of free schools is stalled

Four proposed free schools which aim to open in Yorkshire in just five months’ time are still waiting for Ministerial approval before they can formally accept any pupils.

Despite hoping to open at the start of the next academic year, one of the planned schools in Bradford has yet to announce where it would be based, while another in Hull has no teaching staff lined up and is running out of time to recruit.

Free schools are at the forefront of the coalition Government’s education reforms, which encourage communities to apply for their own state-funded schools.

But parents in Yorkshire who have chosen to send their children to one of the first of these new schools in September still do not know whether the projects are getting the go-ahead – a month after the rest of the country’s secondary school places have been allocated.

The four free school bidders which aim to open this year include two in Bradford – the King’s Science Academy, a plan for a secondary school led by a group of teachers; and the Rainbow School, a primary being developed by not-for-profit enterprise group ATL. The independent Batley Grammar School has applied to become state-funded through the programme, while a secondary school in Hull, St Mary’s College, is leading a plan to create a new free school in the city called the McAuley College Academy.

Parents who want to send their children to a free school have been advised also to apply to an existing council school.

Now councillors, an MP and education campaigners are warning hundreds of children could be pulled out of local authority schools if the bidders get the go-ahead now.

There are also fears that if parents and pupils have only applied to free schools they could be left without any place at all if Ministers reject the school in question. The Department for Education (DfE) has changed the free school applications process and those looking to open schools from 2012 need to apply by June this year for approval a year in advance.

Fiona Millar, of the campaign group Local Schools Network, has criticised the Government for trying to rush the first set of applications.

She said: “Free schools should only be opening in September if they were ready to be part of the rest of the overall schools admissions process. They have been rushed because it has become a vanity project which Education Secretary Michael Gove wanted to be seen to be successful.”

Bradford East MP David Ward said: “State schools which lose pupils a month after their places have been sorted are going to be left in trouble.”

The Yorkshire Post reported last month that Bradford Council had raised concerns over the fact the King’s Science Academy had not yet offered places to parents. The teacher leading the campaign, Sajid Hussain, has previously said that King’s will take around 140 11-year-olds in September.

Bradford Council believes these children may already have places at existing schools and will be pulled out if the free school gets the go-ahead, according to Coun Ralph Berry, the executive member responsible for schools. He said the way the Government was handling the process was “causing chaos” for councils.

The Yorkshire Post has been unable to contact the King’s Science Academy, while the leaders of the Rainbow School project have not answered questions about whether they have a chosen site or at what stage their admissions process is now.

A teacher who is leading the plan for the McAuley College Academy in Hull, Wendy Baxter, said the school will have less than two months to recruit around 14 staff if it gets the go ahead. More than 120 parents had expressed an interest in their children joining but Hull Council has not been given their names.

A DfE spokesman said: ”We’ve been clear all along that a free school will only open once the funding agreement is signed and sealed.”