Free School News

King’s Leadership Academy Warrington is a secondary free school established by the Great Schools Trust. The school seeks to instil leadership characteristics in pupils, through its innovative leadership curriculum. In 2019, Ofsted rated the school as Outstanding, reporting that the school’s pupils ‘achieved beyond academic measures’.  

It is very disappointing that the Chancellor has overlooked a new free school wave in the Spending Review.

At the election less than a year ago, the Government made a promise to ‘level up’ opportunity across the country and address the inequalities in access to, and quality of, critical infrastructure in many communities – particularly across the north and midlands. Many of these areas have some of the highest deprivation levels and lowest educational outcomes, with the average Progress 8 score across northern regions -0.21 compared with +0.22 in London.

Throughout the pandemic, teachers have gone above and beyond to keep schools open and pupils learning. But this year has also exposed further the challenges in our education system that are letting parents and their children down.

This Spending Review is an opportunity to deliver on the manifesto pledges made at the last election – to generate real and lasting change for communities across England, by improving standards of education so that this generation is not blighted by the impact of the pandemic for their whole lives.

"It is fantastic news that another specialist maths free school will be opening, the first to do so in Yorkshire. The University of Leeds will join the likes of Kings College London, the University of Exeter and more recently the University of Liverpool to provide their world-class expertise to sixth-form students.

How they will use the funding

The free schools we spoke to have come up with a variety of uses for the funding: one school is using it to fund two part-time teachers, one with a maths and the other with an English focus, while others intend to use the funding to provide targeted small group tuition over the coming months. School leaders reported to us that the funding they received was often based on census data from last year, meaning it was less than they need.

Schools had catch-up programmes already in place 

New Schools Network and the Confederation of School Trusts (CST) are delighted to publish On Diversity: An Essay Collection. This timely collection is part of a broader programme on diversity for both organisations.

Written by six trustees from Black and minority ethnic backgrounds, the collection hopes to amplify the experience of trustees as they share their views on the importance of diversity and inclusion.  

"The LSE-CEP Social Mobility Survey findings, outlined in last night’s BBC Panorama special, are deeply concerning. Less than 38% of state school pupils benefited from full schooling during lockdown, in comparison to 74% of private school pupils.

"We know that many free schools were able to adapt online learning platforms quickly. Some schools like King's Leadership Academy Warrington ensured full schooling for pupils throughout school closures. However, research highlighting the damning implications of school closures on educational inequality is becoming all too common.

Deborah, Nicholas and Nuno visited Langley Hall to witness what the school does best within its Music Department and to offer their unconditional support and testimonial towards the opening of Langley Hall’s new Music Academy in January 2021.