Industry News

Failing school for sale

Posted on 11th July 2007

A school in Gloucestershire is to become the subject of a Fresh Start competition, under which organisations can place bids to run the school and take it out of special measures.

Under the new government legislation, the local council will be forced to close Finlay Community School unless it allows others to compete to run it, thisisgloustershire.co.uk reports.

Councillor Jackie Hall, cabinet member for children's services at Gloucester County Council, said that although the situation is "disappointing", it now intends to proceed with the competition application.

"Our priority is to improve the quality of teaching while continuing with our efforts to remove the school from special measures," she remarked.

According to the news provider, it is unlikely that an organisation taking over the school would make any financial gain.

In related news, Wellington College recently announced that it had secured £2 million in funding to support a new academy school.

Headmaster Dr Anthony Seldon said that as many as 100 independent schools could make similar contributions to the UK's school system.