Sat, 05 Mar 2011

Rudolf Steiner schools in England fail to win government funding

By Christian von Arnim

LONDON (NNA) – NNA has learned that none of the Rudolf Steiner schools in England which have applied to receive funding under a government programme to create so-called free schools have been successful in the first round of applications.

Free schools as proposed by the coalition government are based on US charter school and Swedish models and are intended to be all-ability state-funded schools set up in response to parental demand.

“The schools and new Steiner initiatives which put in proposals to become a Free School will be hearing from the Department for Education around now,” a spokesperson from the British Steiner Waldorf Schools Fellowship (SWSF) said in a statement in response to an enquiry from NNA.  

“We are not expecting any Steiner schools to move to the next stage for 2011 opening. This is disappointing news, but we hope that a number of our schools will be submitting applications for 2012 and 2013 once the new proposal form is released,” the statement added.

Under the government’s new plans it will become much easier for charities, universities, businesses, educational groups, teachers and groups of parents to get involved in starting a new school which will not be under local authority control but nevertheless receive state funding.

Free schools are not required to follow the national curriculum, can set their own pay and conditions for staff, have greater control over their budget and can change the length of terms and school days.

It appears that the applications from the Steiner schools have not taken account sufficiently of the new more rigorous approach demanded by the government and it has been suggested to them that they should resubmit their applications after further consideration.

NNA understands that one issue has been school premises which are not deemed to be suitable. In other cases, applications from schools with full rolls have also been refused because the government is unwilling simply to start funding existing provision without additional places being made available.

On the other hand, projects unable to demonstrate sufficient demand have also been turned down. This should serve as an incentive to undertake a much more systematic survey of the actual level of demand before making another application, an inside source commented to NNA.

END/nna/cva

Item: 110305-01EN Date: 5 March 2011

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