Credit: This story was first seen on The Telegraph
At least 100 of the country’s leading independent schools will be forced to sponsor a state school or risk losing their charitable status, under the Conservatives’ education proposals, The Telegraph reports.
The Tory manifesto states that private schools must sponsor an academy or set up a free school, as part of plans to create the ‘world’s great meritocracy’.
In a move that will be seen as a warning that private schools will not be able to ignore the demand, the Tories said that they are “keeping open the option of changing the tax status of independent schools if progress is not made”.
Under Conservative Party plans, failing schools will be banned from accepting any more pupils. The plans, which will affect more than one in 10 schools in the country, will bar councils from creating new places at schools that have been rated ‘inadequate’ or ‘requires improvement’ by Ofsted.
Each local council is legally obliged to find a school for each child, but the move would stop councils allocating children to underperforming schools.
The Tories confirmed their commitment to lift the ban on grammar schools, promising that a new wave of selective schools will be allowed to created under certain conditions, such as allowing pupils to join at other ages as well as 11.