Planners to be told new establishments a priority as minister says 750 groups interested in scheme
Planning laws are being torn up so that hundreds of parents can set up their own schools in shops and houses, the education secretary, Michael Gove, announced today. Gove said at least 750 groups of teachers, parents and charities had expressed an interest in establishing the schools that will be run as academies.
Applications to set up the schools opened today. The plan, a flagship Tory education policy, is modelled on Sweden's free schools and charter schools in the US.
Teachers argue it would strip existing schools of much-needed cash and increase social segregation. They say only middle class parents would start their own schools. The man in charge of Sweden's schools, Per Thulberg, has said free schools do not improve standards.
Gove said the amount spent per pupil would stay the same and the policy would reduce the attainment gap between rich and poor pupils. Planning laws and regulations were being rewritten to make it far easier for the schools to be established, he said.
At the moment, parents would have to wade through hundreds of pages of "ridiculous, bureaucratic nonsense" before they could start a school, including answering detailed questions on cycle racks, he added.
"We don't need to have the degree of prescription that has governed school buildings for so long," he said. "It has been a tragedy that so much money has been swallowed up by bureaucracy." Soon residential and commercial properties would be able to be converted into schools quickly, he said.
He admitted that schools would have to use small spaces "imaginatively", but said the most important aspect of education was quality of teaching, rather than facilities.
Half the groups that have shown interest are made up of teachers in deprived parts of the country, while many others are parents who have few or no local schools in their neighbourhoods. Several faith communities have also expressed an interest. The first schools are likely to open in September next year.
Local authorities' planning teams will be told that the creation of the schools, to be run outside local authority control, are a priority, Gove said. He pledged £50m to stimulate growth in the schools between now and next March. The money has been taken from funds to help schools buy computer equipment.
It also emerged that parents are only given 500 words to justify what capacity they have to deliver their "educational vision" on the application form for groups hoping to set up a new school. They are given a maximum of 2,000 words to set out the aims and objectives of their new school. They are asked to set out their teaching methods, a policy on their curriculum and show evidence of a demand for places.
Ed Balls, the shadow education secretary, said the schools could only be paid for by cutting other schools' budgets. "Not only will these plans put rising school standards under Labour into reverse, they're also deeply unfair," he said.
But Gove said the new schools would instead create better value for money.
"In this country, too often the poorest children are left with the worst education while richer families can buy their way to quality education via private schools or expensive houses," he said. "By allowing new schools, we will give all children access to the kinds of education only the rich can afford – small schools with small class sizes, great teaching and strong discipline."
Jon De Maria, a self-employed business man who intends to create a new school near his home in Battersea, south London, said: "This education policy will give us half a chance to send our kids to a school in their community. We want it to be a strongly academic school that engages children, but makes them self-reliant too. We live in a shrinking world and these kids are going to have the kinds of jobs that we don't even know about now. We need to educate them for that."
But Nadine Houghton, organiser for Battersea and Wandsworth Trades Union Council, is against De Maria's plans. She believes they could leave existing schools short of places.
"We know that free schools ... will lead not only to a two tier education system, but also to the closure of existing schools. Parents are loyal to their children's schools and we know that they will not want to see local schools close as a result of a free school opening up in the same area."