Peckham Free School

[BellendenBear]

Does anyone know anything more about this or have any thoughts? There's an open day next Thursday afternoon. I'm curious. It's a Harris School and they seem to have a good reputation for their secondary schools right?

free school

[Renata Hamvas]

It's a 2 form primary being built within the grounds of Harris Academy@Peckham. The intake of Harris Academy is being reduced by one form. This means that there will be 3-18 education on this site.

Renata

[nunheadmum]

There also seems to be another Harris School too - is it Peckham Park. Can you explain at all Renata what the link is between the two? The Primary School book seems to indicate some link but it's not totally clear. It also raises the question as to whether Harris secondaries will then give priority to kids from the Harris primaries.

I know they do seem to be doing a lot of good work in bringing up the local schools but is anyone else a little wary as to the number of local schools being run by Harris? Part of me thinks, if they're performing better than before, it's all good but I can't help but worry when one player gets too active in any one market.

[BellendenBear]

Good points nunheadmum. And the Peckham Park one is an Academy but this one will be a Free School. How will they be managed differently? I also wondered whether sibling priority would be given to kids with elder siblings at the Peckham Academy?

[Renata Hamvas]

Free schools and Academies have the same status in law, they are both under the "Academy" umbrella. They are all schools funded by the state and they are outside of local authority control.

Free schools- these are new state schools, they may be set up by parents, teachers, educational charities, community groups etc. The school must form a not-for-profit charity. They have a direct contract with the Government. They submit a proposal and business case to the Government. They receive their funding directly from the Government.

Typical Academies are current state schools that opt out of Local Authority control and the also become directly funded by the Government. They also must form a not-for-profit charity. They have a direct contract with the Government. They usually have an established charitable trust as a sponsor.

Academies/Free schools set their own admissions policies which may be different to those of local authority schools (eg Harris secondaries have their own banding exam), so I can't comment on admissions policy of Harris primaries to secondaries.

Both schools are being sponsored by the Harris Federation

Renata