Primary to become the 15th free school to close outright

A primary school in West London is to become at least the 15th free school to close outright, having been in temporary premises since it opened in 2015.

Kingston Community School, in Kingston upon Thames, will shut its doors in July, after ministers appeared to conclude that the collapse of the troubled academy chain which had been running it left the school’s finances too precarious to save.

This is despite the government having spent £8.6 million on a site for the school six years ago, with local residents claiming the total cost of the project had been in line to approach £20 million. Kingston Council’s lead councillor for schools said the timing of the closure news, with classrooms closed because of Covid-19, “could not have been worse”.

Background

The demise of the school, whose future Education Uncovered reported as unclear last month after its academy trust, Chapel Street, was announced as closing, ends a saga which critics will see as emblematic of the poor planning which has dogged many free school projects.

The original plan had been to house the school in an existing office block on a site which had been purchased by the government’s Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) in 2014, with the school originally planned to have both primary and secondary sections. Chapel Street’s application to the government to set up the school said it would have 300 pupils in its primary section by 2019.

However, in the event it opened in 2015 with just a primary section, and in temporary premises. Local residents say the office block was then deemed unfit for purpose, but, although the ESFA secured planning permission for the demolition of the building – presumably at further significant cost - in January 2017, it did not happen until February this year.

This academic year, the school, which had only 91 pupils, was operating from two temporary sites: an NHS building near the proposed permanent site, and a former care home. As of last month, its website said it was expecting the building work to be finished in 2022.

However, the demise of Chapel Street, the Christian academy chain which had been running the school, as revealed by this website in February, appears to have been the final straw.

A statement on the website of Kingston Council reads: “Kingston Council is very disappointed by the Government’s decision to close Kingston Community School at the end of this school year, in July 2020.

“Nick Gibb, Minister of State at the Department for Education, has taken an in-principle decision to close the school due to the adverse situation of the trust, Chapel Street, who run the school, and of the school itself.

“The closure will be subject to a formal submission being agreed by both Mr Gibb and Chapel Street in the next month or so…Kingston Community School…has struggled to be financially viable.”

It added: “With no certainty that a permanent site would be achieved within a reasonable period of time, many parents and carers have been understandably reluctant to choose to send their children to the school – which has impacted the school’s financial situation.”

The site, however, might yet have – in several years’ time -  another free school to replace this one. The council said that the DfE would be seeking “in due course, a new education provider to run a new free school” on Kingston’s intended permanent site, to meet an expected growth in local pupil numbers.

Also in the statement from the Liberal Democrat-controlled council, Diane White, portfolio holder for children’s services, said: “I feel very sad for the children, staff and governors of the school who have worked so hard to make the school a success. They have been let down by the ESFA’s inability to provide permanent accommodation for the school within a reasonable period of time…

“The timing of this announcement, during the Covid-19 crisis, could not have been worse.” The council was now supporting parents of children already at the school, and those who had opted to start there in September, to find alternative places for the new academic year.

Residents’ group says “all are to blame”

However, a local residents’ group was reluctant to pin all of the blame on the DfE. In a post on Facebook, Kingston Independent Residents Group [KIRG] wrote: “Who’s responsible for the disaster? Kingston Council shrug their shoulders and blame the department of education. The department of education blame Chapel Street (who ran the school) for having a lack of funds…but KIRG is of the view that all are to blame.”

The post says that the plan had been for the school to operate on two possible sites, both to be provided by the council at “peppercorn” rental rates. The council’s political control changed from Lib Dem to Conservative in 2014 (it would go back again to the Lib Dems in 2018), but by the time Chapel Street was given the all-clear to open a new school, the local authority sites were not available.

The ESFA then spent an “eye-wateringly large sum” for the office block site, for what “seemed a bizarre choice for a school, a small corner plot with no outside space to speak of, rammed next to a railway line…the building was wholly unsuitable from fire regulations to staircases. It would have to be demolished and rebuilt!”

Tom Davies, a Liberal Democrat who during Conservative control of the council was opposition spokesman for schools, was quoted at the time saying that the ESFA had not surveyed the site in advance; that it had subsequently discovered that the staircases and corridors were too narrow for a school; and that they planned to spend a further £7.6 million rebuilding it.”

Message to pupils

In a poignant message posted last Friday – the day after the council announced the news – Alison Cramp, the school’s headteacher, wrote on Facebook:

“Hello lovely KCS children…You are all so unique and amazing because you are all making history in more ways than you probably realise. The thing is…I’ve always known how special you are!!!! And to me you always will be in so many ways. Lots of love.”

A comment beneath reads: “Thank you for everything you’ve done for our children.”

Other local developments

As Education Uncovered also reported in March, the government spent £11 million in 2015 on buying up another office block site in Kingston, for another free school, but has now abandoned that idea after the Kingston Community School project seemed to underline a lack of demand for primary school places. As of last month, it was seeking to sell the building.

Meanwhile, a new faith secondary school, to be controlled by the Diocese of Southwark, was announced earlier this month as having been approved for the borough.

Free school closure data

By my reckoning, Kingston Community School has become the 15^th free school to have its outright closure announced.

“Get Information About Schools” (GIAS), the government’s database, lists 13 free schools* as having closed outright since the policy first started opening institutions, back in 2011. The International Academy of Greenwich, as charted on this site and elsewhere, is to close from this September, to make a 14^th school. It is just possible that other free school closures have been announced which I have missed.

GIAS also lists a further 16 free schools which have been transferred to new academy trusts. In some cases, this has led to traumatic experiences for parents, staff and/or governors, as the institution’s original ethos is radically altered. (I am thinking, for example, of the case of the former Route 39 free school, now called Atlantic College, and of three former Steiner free schools in the west country, which were handed to the Hindu-ethos Avanti Schools Trust last November).

With the government currently stating that there are 508 free schools, a situation whereby 31 have either closed or transferred to new trusts would equate to a rate of six per cent, with outright closures equating to 2.8 per cent.

Snap analysis of these numbers

These seem relatively high figures. Yet, with closures having mainly local effects but being presided over by national politicians, there seems a fundamental gap in accountability.

The nation’s attention is clearly elsewhere at the moment. But, if and when life gets back to something approaching normality, ministers should surely be held to account much more rigorously for what are - in a host of cases, now - shocking logistical failures for this policy.

*I am excluding studio schools and University Technical Colleges, which technically are types of free schools and have high closure rates, from these figures.