In a speech at one of the 24 new ‘Free Schools’ to open this month, Prime Minister, David Cameron, set out his priorities for state education reform. He attacked “coasting” schools, demanded “excellence” across the board and stated his “complete intolerance of failure”.

David Cameron spoke at The Free School, Norwich, one of the first of the new ‘Free Schools’ to open its doors to new pupils at the beginning of this academic year. Free Schools were the Conservatives flagship education policy in the lead-up to the last election; they are government funded schools free from local authority control and are free to set their own curriculum and school hours.

The Prime Minster congratulated the Norwich school as being “completely inspiring”.  He spoke about how Free Schools could help to deliver his vision of “an education system based on real excellence, with a complete intolerance of failure.” He explained how he would like to see this example "replicated many, many times up and down the country."

He defended the Free Schools programme tackling the main criticisms from teaching unions and education spokespeople – that the programme could be socially divisive and unaccountable. He said, “I think this misses the point entirely, because free schools aren’t just giving parents who are frustrated with their local school a new chance of a better education.  They also encourage existing schools in the area to compete, to raise their game.”

He continued to target discipline and outlined further measures to drive up standards in schools. In a radical turn, he outlined plans for cutting the benefits of “those parents whose children consistently and constantly play truant.”

“I know this would be a tough measure”, he added, “but we urgently need to restore order and respect in the classroom.”

Failing schools were also targeted in the speech. A school will now be judged to be failing if less than 50% of pupils are getting five good GCSEs. Mr Cameron also announced tougher targets for primary schools - for the first time, unless 60 per cent of pupils achieve the accepted level – Level 4 – in English and maths at Key Stage 2, they will also be judged to be failing.

Mr Cameron concluded his speech by focusing on “coasting schools”. He described these schools as “the ones whose results have either flat-lined, or where they haven’t improved as much as they could have done”

“In many parts of our country where people think the schools are doing a good job, they are, but they could be doing so much better... we want to see every school striving for excellence.”

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