Resourced provisions and SEN units
This guidance seeks to help applicant groups proposing a mainstream free school with resourced provision and/or a special educational needs (SEN) unit.
NSN Director: "Fantastic news that another specialist maths free school will be opening"
"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.
SCAP 2020
As part of the free school application process, it is important to have an understanding of how your proposed school will impact on the existing provision in your area. In previous waves, demonstrating basic need for a new school has been a key requirement. This resource outlines a variety of resources that applicants can use to build a basic need case for their chosen area and explains how to interpret the school capacity (SCAP) data tables.
Free school resource bank
Planning your free school proposal may feel daunting. We have aimed to simplify this process by collating a range of guidance available from the Department for Education (DfE) and other sources. This resource includes a list of documents intended to help groups who are applying to open a primary, secondary or 16-19 mainstream free school.
CAPA College
CAPA College is a 16-19 school in Wakefield. It opened in 2018 and is part of the Enhance Academy Trust. CAPA College provides full time arts training and education for its students, helping to train and educate the next generation of performers, creatives, designers and technicians. The school provides students with intensive practical training alongside the rigour of academic arts study. This combination of professional training and academia ensures that students develop the skills, training, experience, knowledge, understanding and qualifications to progress to higher education.
London Screen Academy
London Screen Academy is a 16 to 19 college in Islington, which opened in 2019. The college specialises in entertainment technologies, creative media arts, performance and production. It ...
Site guidance for applicants
This guidance is for central route mainstream school applicants only. This guidance will help you to identify what you can and cannot do in the application stage to identify potential sites for your free school and will explain what information you will need to provide in section H of the free school application. This guidance will also explain some of the things you should consider when looking for potential sites, and what you can expect if your project is approved to the pre-opening stage.
NSN welcomes the announcement that the University of Liverpool Mathematics College will open in 2020
Last year, King’s College London Mathematics School placed at the top of The Times A level results table after students achieved 92% A* grade in mathematics, and 99% of all grades being A*-B grades. Almost a quarter of the school’s students gained a place at either Oxford or Cambridge, and over 90% secured a place at a Russell Group university.
DfE invites top universities to open specialist maths free schools
The Department for Education (DfE) today announced a new application process and ‘how to apply guidance’ for opening university-sponsored specialist maths schools, specialist 16-19 free schools for pupils who are mathematically able. They are supported by universities which offer highly selective, high-tariff undergraduate maths courses.