Secondary school plan gets go-ahead

1:21pm Saturday 14th July 2012 in News By Neil Vowles

The Government has given the go ahead to a Christian free school which aims to move on to the site of a leisure centre.

Kings School Hove secondary school has been given Department for Education backing to open in September 2013.

The preferred option for the school’s backers is to build the school with shared leisure facilities on the site of the King Alfred Leisure Centre.

The school is one of three given the green light yesterday alongside the pro- posed Chichester Free School and East Sussex Free School based in Eastbourne.

Kings School Hove will cater for up to 750 11 to 16-year-olds with half of the school’s places allocated to students from Christian primary schools.

Parent proposers Sue Worthing and Katherine Laux, who are being backed by the Russell Education Trust and the Diocese of Chichester, argue there is a shortage of Christian secondary places in Brighton and Hove.

Karen Lynch, chief executive of the Russell Education Trust, said she was delighted by the decision.

She said: “We know that there’s going to be demand for an extra secondary school and there is overwhelming demand for a school with Christian values.”

Mother-of-two Louisa Greenbaum led the King’s School No Thanks campaign against the school and says she has collected around 100 signatures opposing the school.

She said: “It’s disappointing but not surprising. Very few applications for free schools get turned down.

“I object to the free school as a free school and because it’s a faith school. I think they promote segregation and selection by the back door which I don’t think is good for the community.

“I can’t see any hope of stopping it but we might be able to challenge their search for a premises.”

A Brighton and Hove City Council spokesman said: “We have a statutory duty to deliver enough school places for the children and young people in our city.

“We will need more secondary age school places in the coming years, and we look forward to sitting down with the Kings School to find out more about their plans.”

Conservative councillor Andrew Wealls, opposition spokesman for children and young people, said: “It is well known that the city needs two more secondary schools by the second half of this decade, and it is good that one of these will now offer extra choice to parents and pupils.”

Comments(13)

JohnnyDale says...
1:42pm Sat 14 Jul 12

"Conservative councillor Andrew Wealls, opposition spokesman for children and young people, said: “It is well known that the city needs two more secondary schools by the second half of this decade, and it is good that one of these will now offer extra choice to parents and pupils.”"

... its only extra choice for those parents who belong to the appropriate cult, and who wish to have their children indoctrinated at everyone else's expense.

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nigeyb says...
1:49pm Sat 14 Jul 12

I am very unhappy about this decision. Brighton and Hove needs more school places. Unhelpfully the current Government insists that any new schools must be an Academies or ‘Free Schools’ (unless there are no sponsors or proposers interested in opening a school). The Free School policy, under the guise of offering greater choice, is socially divisive. It's a tragedy that the tax payer is funding schools with selective entry criteria, that also directly and indirectly increase social segregation. Our education system is in desperate need of improvement and investment. Germany provides a great recent example of what can can be achieved when a Government commits to educational excellence. Sadly the Free School policy will, at best, create a few new high performing schools and I think even that outcome is debatable. It's a very clever policy in so far as it panders to those Conservative-voting parents who want oik-free schools for their kids but don't want, or can't afford, to go independent. Alas it will not improve overall standards and, I suspect, that by cherry-picking the more capable pupils via selective entry criteria, the net effect will be to make overall results worse.

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nigeyb says...
2:06pm Sat 14 Jul 12

I'm not aligned to any particular political party. I'm a pragmatist. This article - http://bit.ly/Nyimyv - seems to me to demonstrate how education in the UK is undervalued and mistreated by Politicians. A programme that appears to be working gets pulled, in spite of the evidence, because it doesn't fit with the personal prejudices of the incoming education secretary. I despair. What might have been.

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nigeyb says...
3:11pm Sat 14 Jul 12

@getThisCoalitionOut - Please say more about how Louisa Greenbaum is not being honest about her reasons for opposing this school.

By the way the petition got over 300 signatures according to the website - http://kings-school-
no-thanks.org.uk/ - so not sure why the article only states 100.

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Maxwell's Ghost says...
3:24pm Sat 14 Jul 12

I am not a religious follower, but why do religious schools perform better and why do so many min religious people want their kids to go to them?

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nigeyb says...
4:25pm Sat 14 Jul 12

@Maxwell's Ghost - is it down to better schools or better pupils? This provides some answers to your question... http://cep.lse.ac.uk
/pubs/download/cp228
.pdf

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bug eye says...
11:18pm Sat 14 Jul 12

as far as I am aware free schools have to take a percentage of mixed faiths and non believers, a christian school means its values are mainly christian based as all schools used to be, with assemblys with hymns and a christmas play. what is all the fuss about, great there is to be a new secondary school in hove that will instill discipline and values. well done good news. scaremongering about cults etc. is what is divisive and wrong.

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Hard times says...
11:28pm Sat 14 Jul 12

Sick sick people. We should be moving towards removing indoctrination from education completely not moving backwards ands pandering to it.

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katherine.l says...
12:15am Sun 15 Jul 12

This is such great news for our city. More school places - more diversity - I am so pleased and excited.

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Maxwell's Ghost says...
8:38am Sun 15 Jul 12

When I was at secondary school the teachers freely spouted left wing politics and some of them freely dispensed racist views in the early 1980s so unless you remove teachers from schools I am not sure you will stop kids being indoctrinated by someone.
Your kids are with another adult for most of their young lives. Find out what gets said to them.

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Fight Back says...
9:22am Sun 15 Jul 12

Religion and education should be kept seperate. By all means teach children about the different religions but to practice one in school is wrong. My children have assemblies, hymns etc at school and have been brainwashing in the believing about God. As much as I try and tell them to keep an open mind and that there are people who believe in different things or don't believe at all they don't get it because of the bias of their school. We should be opening non-faith schools not ones that are religiously bias.

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Hovite says...
12:37pm Tue 17 Jul 12

When it says Christian free, does this mean that there will be no Christians allowed?

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nigeyb says...
11:08am Wed 18 Jul 12

A new school is better than no school at all so at least Hove gets more much needed secondary school places. That said, I feel deeply saddened that parents have to put their time and energy into something that we all pay for through our taxes; that third parties will soon be profiteering out of education provision and taking much needed funds out of the system; and that the idea of universal school provision is being dismantled by this Government, and replaced by a a new form of social engineering - one that withholds resources to gain compliance. It's deeply disturbing and very depressing. Free schools have a patchy track record in other countries and there's very little evidence that things will be any different in the UK. Meanwhile successive generations get sold short as politicians try new ideological driven "solutions" rather than provide sufficient funds to educational experts and other stakeholders to strive for educational excellence for all. Sorry to be so downbeat. What we all want is for our kids to realise their potential in a supportive and stimulating learning environment. So yes, it's good news but sadly only for a few kids in the City, and it's all part of a broader and deeply depressing trend to short change the overall provision of education - which is the key to future prosperity for us all.

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