The 15 new free schools approved by the government last week are an unforgivable wasted opportunity and the direct opposite of ‘levelling up’.
Nine of the 15 new schools will be elitist 16 to 19 year free schools. These new schools will be focused on selective and mostly academic level 3 provision. They are therefore explicitly an investment in provision for young people who have already achieved well at age 16. ‘Levelling up’ should be primarily about the young people who have fallen behind at age 16.
By increasing the number of selective schools and colleges that focus only on recruiting half of young people at age 16, we marginalise and undervalue the other half of our young people. And by institutionally separating those two halves from each other based on academic attainment, we are recreating at age 16 a system with the same fundamental flaws as grammar schools impose on 11-year-olds.
Moreover, we risk investing less and thinking less about those who don’t make the grade at age 16 and don’t enjoy the parental or other support to catch up.
