Food for thought in the TES, Observer and Telegraph.  First off, a piece on a storm brewing in Wandsworth over Katharine Birbalsingh’s planned secondary free school.  There’s a little local difficulty over the fact that the school will open in a Borough that has spare places in its secondary schools but not enough space in its primaries.  The Observer carried a piece headed “Katharine Birbalsingh criticised over ‘wasteful’ free school project”.

Now, as Toby Young points out, Birbalsingh is not wholly to blame for the fact the school has ended up in Wandworth.  She had originally planned to site the school in Lambeth, a Borough that does indeed lack secondary spaces.  Young says that the bid fell foul of opposition from “left wingers” who control the council.  As we’ve argued previously, Young is being disingenuous in assigning this debate a neat political divide: there are both left-wing supporters and right-wing detractors of academies and free schools.  Indeed, as Birbalsingh points out in her own blog, Labour MP Kate Hoey “is a big supporter of ours”.  But the point, that Birbalsingh tried to locate her school in an area in need of secondary places and couldn’t, stands.  She points out in her defence that it’s still located on the border of Wandsworth, Lambeth and Merton so will be more broadly accessible.