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Evidence for your School

There are three kinds of evidence you will need for your application:

Demand

If you cannot demonstrate demand from parents for your school you will not be approved. The DfE will want to see evidence of parental demand for three reasons:

  • If there are no pupils, there is no need for a school;
  • If your application is successful the DfE will give you money for capital, lead-in costs (before you open) and start-up costs (before you are full). They want to see robust evidence that the school will be the size you predict before they commit that money; and
  • The principle behind the Free School policy is to give more parents and pupils the option of a good school – you must therefore engage with local parents.

Collecting evidence of demand will be one of the most time-consuming elements of the application process and one that you should start work on immediately.

Please note: if your application is for a Special school or Alternative Provision school you will need to demonstrate demand from the Local Authority.

You need to show:

  • That you have enough parents with children of the relevant ages;
  • That they are signing up to your specific school; and
  • That they are committed - would they put your school down as their first choice or one of their choices?

Resources

NSN has developed guidance on demonstrating demand, as well as sample surveys and petitions which you can modify to suit your needs.

School support survey 

Find out how to set up your own website here.

You can also read more on how to demonstrate demand in our detailed application guide.

Supporting data

For your application to succeed you need to demonstrate why you want a school. Are you responding to standards? Deprivation? A lack of places or particular provision? You need to determine what is relevant to your school and demonstrate to the DfE what problem you are trying to solve.

The DfE has developed a search tool which allows you to compare schools across a wide range of measures which you can use here.

Below are other data sources that you may find useful:

Source Data

The government has two ways of holding schools' educational performance to account, through exam results (Key Stage examinations, GCSEs and A Levels) and Ofsted inspections. These data can help you assess the performance of your local school and others in your area. You may find the following resources helpful:

School Specific Data

  • Ofsted Reports (http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/Ofsted-home/Inspection-reports/Schools)
  • Exam Results (http://www.education.gov.uk/performancetables/)

Local Authority Data

Evidence from the community

You may wish to use quotes to describe why your school is wanted by local parents, employers and the community. Groups generally collect this information throughout the process. With this information, groups can establish the priority needs of the parents and the local community and incorporate these into their vision and education plan.