The UK’s largest education union has branded free schools “a costly experiment” after a study found social segregation increased in areas where primary free schools had opened.
Researchers at University College London (UCL) found the introduction of free primaries reduced student numbers in neighbouring schools, which could lead to cuts in their staff and curriculum.
Former Conservative education secretary Michael Gove spearheaded the creation of free schools, which are Government-funded but not run by the local authority, do not have to follow the national curriculum and cannot select pupils based on their academic ability.
Free schools were introduced in 2010 and UCL researchers said they were “intended to be high-quality alternatives, offering parents better choice and increasing attainment by boosting competition between local schools, driving up performance”.
However, their analysis found primary free schools led to “modest increases” in segregation for pupils speaking English as an additional language, black, Asian and ethnic minority students, and also white British students.
The researchers said “the trend in England has been toward decreasing segregation” but children in areas with primary free schools are increasingly divided by ethnicity as pupils are less likely to meet peers from different backgrounds at school.
They attributed this to free schools creating “new options for parents to choose schools that are more homogenous than their local area, including both ‘self-segregation’ by minority-ethnic parents and perceived ‘white flight'”.
In response to the study, Niamh Sweeney, deputy general secretary of the National Education Union (NEU), said: “Free schools have been a costly experiment and were never intended to meet local need, often built where they were not required.
“They are symbolic of the previous Government’s obsession with pushing gimmicks rather than dealing with the central challenges facing education.”
She added: “The free school programme rests on the corrosive idea that increasing competition by opening a new school is the way to drive school improvement across an area.
“The reality is that free schools have often had a damaging impact on local schools. As this report shows, this is particularly true in neighbourhoods with higher numbers of disadvantaged school-age children.
“The education system as a whole is crying out for a joined-up and coordinated approach to place planning. We hope the new Government can bring this about.”
The number of reception pupils enrolling in primary schools near a free school declined by an average of 2.5% over four of the six years analysed.
Researchers said this could bring cuts to staff and the curriculum because state funding is “closely linked” to student rolls.
The report warned primary free schools “had the potential to start a cycle of decline” by “negatively influencing parents’ choices and further concentrating disadvantaged students into neighbouring schools”.
Neighbouring schools were more likely to “become destabilised” by this effect if they served a deprived neighbourhood, lost students to a free school, and were downgraded to below ‘good’ by Ofsted shortly before or after a free school opened, they added.
Lead author Dr Rob Higham, from UCL’s Faculty of Education, said: “Our findings show that the introduction of free schools has often created new competition, but this competition has related particularly to recruitment from a finite pool of students as well as to students’ socio-economic status, rather than directly to teaching quality and classroom practices.
“When subjected to these new market pressures, neighbouring schools rarely prioritised change or innovation in classroom practices.”
Nearly two-thirds of leaders om neighbouring schools who responded to the study said they were in competition with their nearest free school, including in popularity among parents and recruiting students.
This was particularly felt in areas where free schools were seen to “appeal to aspirational or middle-class families”.
The perceived competition was linked to new marketing and promotional activities by neighbouring schools and, to a lesser extent, a greater emphasis on core curriculum subjects, student attainment in exams and Ofsted grades.
However, there was reportedly no evidence that the free schools “spurred neighbouring schools to act to directly enhance the quality of their teaching and learning”.
The surveyed primary free schools “performed worse than a matched sample of similar schools”, researchers said.
Free schools were not linked with “any significant change” in pupils’ attainment at nearby primary schools, they added.
A Department for Education spokesperson said: “Making sure all schools are inclusive places, so that every child gets the best start in life is at the heart of our mission to break down the barriers to opportunity.
“The Children’s Wellbeing Bill will introduce a range of changes to ensure children are safe, healthy, happy and treated fairly.
“This includes measures to require state-funded schools to cooperate with the local authority on school admissions, SEND inclusion, and ensure admissions decisions account for the needs of communities.”
UCL researchers used the National Pupil Database to analyse the average impact of mainstream free schools on their neighbours.
They focused on free schools that opened between 2011 and 2020, and also surveyed 328 state schools with a mainstream free school nearby
Case studies were created on nine areas in which a free school had opened, using data up to 2022.
