Free Schools in Suffolk: a week of revelations starts Monday

I have recently received some 1400 pages of correspondence about free schools in Suffolk following a freedom of information request I served on Suffolk County Council. Much of this is fairly routine and practical but there are some interesting things buried away in the messages. I have already published an email showing how few "expressions of interest" have been made in free school places.

Starting on Monday I will publish a series of revelations about Suffolk Free Schools that try to answer why a county with nearly 11000 free secondary school places is faced with up to 7 new free schools opening. All of them in the more rural areas of the county many of which have decreasing populations.

One of the things that is clear is that part of the motivation is political. And some Conservative councillors and a certain MP do not appear to think that the County Council are being supportive enough of free school proposals:

Here Cllr Joanna Spicer the local County Councillor in Ixworth is emailing the Portfolio Holder for Education Graham Newman. Next week's revelations will show why Cllr Spicer might feel unhappy that the County Council have not done what she wanted...

Monday: How the Ixworth Free School tried to get to open in 2013


You can read all the posts in the Free Schools FOI Series