Back in late December 2011, I was one of a group of parents who decided that the only way to provide the type of secondary schooling we wanted for our children was to do it ourselves. Our area of north London needed a new school, but the local authority's hands were tied by government policy. So the idea for the Archer academy was born. We wanted a non-denominational, non-selective mixed secondary school serving our local community.
In early 2012, we invited a company that supports free-school proposers and has established a number of its own to come and meet our group. Its assessment was that we were yet to fully understand quite what we were letting ourselves in for.
We were on a steep learning curve, but our application to establish a new free school was submitted to the Department for Education just two months later and approved to enter the set-up phase in July last year. And now, less than a year since the DfE backed our proposal, and I wrote about our struggles through the application process, our first intake of year 7 pupils is just a few weeks from walking through the doors.
How did we transform ourselves from unlikely proposers into what our appointed DfE lead officer has now described as "the gold standard for free schools"?
Probably the most important key was getting the communications and engagement right from the outset. From taking the first tentative steps to developing our application, having local parents on board was absolutely crucial. We focused on reaching out to parents and involving them in helping to shape our plans to ensure our school fully reflected their aspirations. Regular public meetings, having a presence at community events, standing outside the gates of schools to talk to people, articles in the local press, using social media, sending weekly emails to our supporters and developing and maintaining an accessible and informative website were all important.
We also worked hard to engage with the governors and heads of our local primary schools. Life would have been far harder without the backing of the schools from which our pupils would come.
Free schools are a political hot potato and we knew that if we were not careful we'd find ourselves stuck in the middle of local party politics – with supporters and opponents of free schools lining up on either side and disregarding the lack of local provision. And yet the support of ward councillors, the local authority and our MP has been a tremendous asset. That we secured the support of our Conservative local authority, facing a massive shortage of school places, might not be a surprise, but we also managed to win over our Labour councillors. While they all had reservations about the free schools programme, they also saw that our motivations were socially responsible and inclusive and that our success would benefit the whole local community. Their support helped us to take some of the politics out of the process and reduce the criticism we might otherwise have expected. Our MP was always willing to speak directly to ministers when things – usually relating to securing premises – got slightly sticky.
Every community has huge assets and resources within it, many of them latent and untapped. The funding provided by the DfE to support the set-up phase is tight. Very tight. Over three-quarters of it went on recruitment and staffing costs for our lead-in staff. So the only way to balance the budget was by relying heavily on volunteers. Tens of thousands of volunteer hours must have been put in by our steering group in establishing the school, but just as significant have been the contributions of hundreds of local parents, small businesses, schools, charities and people who just wanted to see us succeed. Our website development, design and branding, legal advice, architectural advice and educational support were all provided for practically nothing. If we'd had to pay commercial rates for these things the bill would have run into tens, if not hundreds, of thousands.
Of course, applying to start a school and setting it up are not at all the same as running a school. The initial process is more like setting up a small charity or business and, like any start-up entrepreneurs, we found ourselves having to do everything: giving out flyers one day, then developing a strategic plan the next. Project management, marketing, ICT, graphic design, engagement and campaigning skills have all been crucial to our progress.
We found the governors' skills audit from the National Governors Association useful, but it didn't quite reflect the skills and knowledge that were required in setting up the school. Governance matters. A lot. We were very conscious of the huge responsibility we were taking on. Without any staff for most of the process, we had to take on operational and strategic functions.
Free school governance is new and we found no particular desire within the DfE to offer us strong direction. Academies are finding their way, particularly in relation to the arrangements between the Academy Trust and the governing body. Without a routemap to follow, we learned by looking at what others have done, but ultimately had to develop our own approach. We found having a series of sub-groups for finance, premises, education and communications and engagement, with delegated authority for each area invaluable. The process has been bumpy and tensions have emerged along the way, but the strength of relationships within our group has helped to keep things moving forward.
Securing a home for our school has probably been the most difficult thing we have had to do, particularly where we are in London, since available land and property are extremely limited. One of the things that made it more challenging for us was that, unlike almost every other aspect of the process, we were not in control of it. As proposers, we were entirely reliant on the Education Funding Agency and their advisers to secure premises. And, as anyone who has ever bought a home will know, it's an extremely stressful process, with frustrating delays and uncertainty at every turn.
However, the sheer delight when we finally managed to sign on the dotted line is some compensation for all the stress. We quickly realised the benefits of being proactive – doing our own research and investigating potential properties ourselves and not relying solely on the EFA to do this. We had to be prepared to be very firm about the siting of our school. It did feel at times that we were having to resist pressure to accept buildings offered, so we were very clear about our absolute "red lines" for our premises.
Eventually our efforts were successful, securing not one but two sites for the school. Our first home will be a former further education college, which came up for sale at just the right time, providing us with purpose-built premises. The second part of our urban campus is a derelict playing field and adjacent warehouse owned by the local authority. The playing fields, which had been the subject of a local community campaign to protect them from housing development, will provide sports and recreational facilities for the local community outside of school use. The playing fields will be protected for community benefit in perpetuity through a partnership with a local community organisation, Sport East Finchley.
The journey has been an emotional rollercoaster, with a constant series of highs and lows. At times we thought the school was never going to see the light of day. We have needed huge deposits of personal and collective resilience to pick ourselves up after every setback. But along with the dark moments there have been real highs.
Stand-out moments for me have been the buzz in the playground on the morning we heard that our application had been approved, the acquisition of our building and public meetings with 300 enthusiastic parents, all with a shared ambition to see the school established.
As we went through our free school journey, we never stopped asking ourselves "just how good can this school be?" We have been prepared to dream, and not to compromise on what we want. We have been prepared to challenge and question ourselves and others, and we have never accepted that just because people tell you "this is how it's done", it is necessarily the best way to do it.
Stephen Twigg recently set out Labour's plans to scrap free schools, but to support new parent-led academies. I certainly welcome the prospect of more groups of parents being able to establish new schools serving their community, whether through the current free schools programme or as new "parent-led academies", as Twigg called them.
Setting up a new school is a remarkable opportunity. You start with a blank piece of paper. It is a huge undertaking and requires, as is appropriate, a huge amount of time and effort, but the prize at the end of the road is amazing. Now we move on to the different challenges of overseeing the running of the school and ensuring that our vision for an outstanding school serving our local community is realised.
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