Competitive effects of free schools on student outcomes in neighbouring schools

This project involved a major analysis of free schools and their competitive effects on student outcomes and neighbouring schools.

Why is this research important

Free schools were introduced by the coalition government following the 2010 general election to make it possible for parents, teachers, charities and businesses to set up their own schools. The government invested significantly in the development and promotion of these schools, arguing not just that they will be excellent in their own right and offer parents better choices, but also that this will create new pressures for improvement in neighbouring schools. However, there was no rigorous evidence on the outcomes for students, and some concern that free schools may have a negative impact on neighbouring schools. This research sought to address this evidence gap and so help inform decision making regarding the opening of new schools.

What did it do?

This project used a mixed-methods design, combining quantitative and qualitative methods and statistical analysis of longitudinal data to compare free schools opened between 2011 and 2020 with their 9 closest mainstream schools. The researchers also developed in-depth case studies of the local markets in which free schools open, to create new knowledge on the interrelationships between school choice, competition and improvement.

This research sought to provide evidence for how free schools influence local patterns of choice and competition, as well as their effects on pupil outcomes. It also aimed to identify whether free schools have a disproportionate impact on outcomes for socioeconomically disadvantaged children.

What did it find?

1. While free schools are a diverse population, they have had observable impacts on their neighbours. Neighbours on average lost students, commonly perceived competition and, where they did, responded to a free school’s presence. This provided some support to policy claims that free schools force existing schools to take new action, but the research also found clear disruptions to such claims. Neighbours rarely saw free school competition to concern attainment or innovation, rather relating it to student numbers, funding and selective competition over students’ socio-economic status. This influenced school actions. Free school competition spurred neighbours to deploy more resources to improve their appeal and external quality metrics, but typically without a related focus on classroom practices. This raised important questions about the nature of any measured improvement, where this is not based on changing the quality of teaching and learning.
   
   2. Free schools were not associated with improvement in student attainment in primary school neighbours on average, but there was modest improvement in secondary school neighbours. The findings suggest social selection was a mediator of free school competition translating into improvement in secondaries. Schools gaining a substantively more disadvantaged intake after a free school opened did not improve. Schools gaining a more advantaged intake did. So, these change in student attainment seemed largely related to the benefits of having more students better positioned to perform well.
   
   3. The research identified conditions perceived to destabilise specific schools. These included serving a deprived context, loosing students due to a free school and being downgraded to below ‘Good’ by Ofsted just before or after a free school opened. This had the potential to start a cycle of decline, by negatively influencing parental choice, further concentrating disadvantaged students and creating the need for cuts to staffing and the curriculum.
   
   4. Segregation increased where primary free schools opened, particularly relating to students’ ethnicity. The research attributed this to selective competition and to different ways in which specific free schools have created new options for parents from particular social groups to choose schools that are more homogenous than the local area.