I was slightly disappointed that Lisa Nandy saw fit to attack the West London Free School in the course of making her case against free schools in general in the New Statesman. One of the courtesies that both sides of this argument generally observe is not to single out individual schools for criticism.
She claimed that the proportion of children on Free School Meals at the WLFS is 23%, compared to an average of 32% at the five neighbouring schools. I don't know how she’s defining "neighbouring schools", but the five closest schools to the West London Free School as the crow flies are Godolphin & Latymer, Ravenscourt Prep, Latymer Upper, Sacred Heart and Flora Gardens. Since the first three of these are independent schools and the proportion of children on FSM at Sacred heart is 7%, I can assure her the average proportion of children on FSM across all five is not 32%. (To read more, click here.)
