Our evidence to the Education Select Committee

The Education Select Committee, a committee of MPs who are education specialists, is currently conducting an inquiry into aspects of the academies and Free Schools programmes.

Our Community, Our Schools submitted written evidence to this inquiry which was published on the Committee's website in January. Our evidence focused on the process for setting up a Free School.

We argued that the legislation enabling the establishment of Free Schools is deeply flawed and anti-democratic. The process is so thin that there are practically no levers by which communities can influence the establishment of a school, nor is it possible to hold the main actors and agencies to account. We characterise it as enabling and encouraging the establishment of schools at public expense on the back of crude marketing campaigns. You can read our full evidence here.

The rest of the written evidence submitted can be read on the Committee's website.