Demand for more secondary places could equal big schools

Oasis Academy

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OLDHAM could get another controversial free school to meet demand for more secondary places.

Three other schools would also be expanded to create the extra 300 Year 7 places needed for next September, and a total of 700 by 2021, to cope with the rising birth rate, new housing developments and more families moving to the borough ­- including high numbers from abroad.

But the proposal for another free school has been attacked by the borough's largest teaching union which says that Oldham's existing one ­- Collective Spirit in Chadderton ­- is in chaos. The plans will go to Cabinet on Monday and would be paid for with £38.2 million of Government funding allocated to the council for the next two years to provide extra school places.

If approved Crompton House ­- Oldham's third most oversubscribed school ­- would expand to create an extra 120 places per year, while Oldham Academy North in Royton would get an additional 60 places. Building work would start in spring.

Oasis Academy Oldham in Hollins would take an extra 60 pupils each year but building work is not needed as it previously cut its numbers by this amount.

The report also recommends opening a new 1,500-pupil free school ­- saying that government legislation means that any new schools have to either be academies or free schools which are run by groups such as charities or businesses.

Both have greater freedoms and are subject to less local authority control, but the the latter is preferred as the council would not have to pay start-up costs.

But the report stresses: "The council will seek to ensure that any free school will be able to demonstrate its capacity to provide good or outstanding provision and work closely with the local authority and the wider school community."

Collective Spirit opened in Chadderton in September, 2013, amid fierce opposition from the council which was forced to hand over prime-development land.

Oldham West and Royton MP Jim McMahon is urging the Government to close the school after Ofsted said it was failing to give pupils an acceptable standard of education.

Mr McMahon described it as one of the most damning Ofsted reports he had seen and has raised his concerns with the regional schools commissioner.

Two new free schools for children and teenagers with special educational needs in Oldham were approved by the Government last month and are supported by the council.

The National Union of Teachers opposes both free schools and academies but Tony Harrison, joint Oldham branch secretary, said: "If the local authority is being pushed down that route, then we would prefer them to consider an academy rather than a free school. At least there is some control by the local authority with academies, some sort of supervision, where free schools are a law unto themselves.

"We have seen the chaos caused by the existing free school in Oldham and we would want to avoid that at all costs. We are getting reports from our members there of bad organisation, timetables not being ready, immense staff workloads and conditions of service being ignored, and the trade unions have not been able to secure recognition agreements."