Plans for the first free school in Hackney met a barrage of criticism at a public meeting on Saturday.
The Free School for Hackney group has been meeting for the last two months and filed a petition for a new school last week, but at the first public airing of the group’s proposal at the Trelawney Estate Community Hall on Saturday, they faced strong opposition from teachers and parents.
Leanne Tritton, a governor at Orchard Primary school on Holcroft Road, said: “If there was a magical ingredient for creating a school this way, we would have found it already. How is a group of volunteers going to manage this programme in a sustainable way long-term?”
Hackney resident and father Patrick Meeham said: “There’s a danger of creating a two-tier system, as some of the children get well established schools and some are sent to less prestigious free schools.”
However, Alan Alster, campaign manager for Free School for Hackney remained undeterred: “We expect the population of Hackney to continue to increase until 2020. Without free schools, how will we meet the growing demand for places in the next five years?”
The group is now appealing to residents to help them find a suitable site in Hackney to use for the school, with a view to opening the first school in September 2012.
Under the coalition government’s free school programme, new schools can be proposed and established by communities instead of local educational authorities.
