15,000 New School Places Across The South East
The Department for Education has given the green light for 27 new free schools across the South East to create 15,429 new places.
Free schools are funded from central government and run outside local council control. That gives their leadership and stakeholders more control over how they operate. They can be established by parent groups, teachers, charities, businesses, cultural and sporting bodies, community groups, academy trusts and sponsors.
As we can see with the Leigh Academies Trust opening 3 free schools, they can also be in response to demand from the local community. This tends to be in areas with a shortage of places or where the parents are not taking the places on offer. Leigh already has 15 academy schools in Kent and South East London, teaching 10,000 pupils.
Justin Greening, the Education Secretary said: “We need schools that can bring out the best in every single child no matter where they're growing up, how much their parents earn, or however different their talents are.”
“That's why these new schools are so important - they give us the school places we need for the future, and they also give parents more choices to find a great school place in their area that's right for their child.”
James Sanderson, Gen² Head of Project Management said “The latest wave of schools will create 131 new schools nationally. That could put pressure on the availability of specialist education construction skills.”
“If we can learn anything from the issue of building inspectors closing schools in Scotland because of safety issues, it’s that it is paramount to assemble a team of education construction professionals when building, expanding or fitting out schools.”
Only this week, the BBC are reporting that dozens of schools in Scotland have found similar defects to Edinburgh schools judged to be unsafe. Problems first came to light when hundreds of bricks weighing a total of nine tonnes were blown from a wall at Edinburgh’s Oxgangs Primary School in January 2016.