‘Most popular’ schools figures axed from web

COLLECTIVE Spirit Free School has removed a story from its website which wrongly acclaimed it as the “most popular” secondary in Greater Manchester based on applications.

The story, originally published in the Manchester Evening News (MEN), was based on incorrect figures supplied to it in a Freedom of Information request that was carried out right across the Trinity Mirror titles nationwide.

It said that Collective Spirit had 581 applications for the 2014/15 school year, despite only 60 places being available. This gave it 9.7 applications per place, the most in the region.

However the correct council figures show that the number of applications was actually 84, making it 1.4 applications per place.

Oldham Academy North has also taken down a story from its website saying it is the second most popular Oldham school behind Collective Spirit.

According to the MEN story, it had 630 applications for 240 places, with 2.6 applications per place. The figures should have been 265 applications, and 1.1 per place.

The most popular of Oldham’s 13 state schools by this measure were actually Blue Coat and North Chadderton. Collective Spirit and Oldham Academy North were ninth and 11th respectively.

Achievements

At the time, Collective Spirit featured in the front-page headlines of the special supplement and a representative of the school was quoted about its achievement.

Free schools are funded by the Government but run by groups such as charities, businesses or parents.

Collective Spirit opened at the former South Chadderton School in 2013 and principal Elizabeth Whitehead said: “We checked with the MEN and they assured us [the figures] were right.

“We were surprised but suspected that Oldham had done something wrong as the figures we had were different. Until we were told by the Chronicle they were wrong, there seemed no reason to not trust all involved.”

Martin Knowles, principal at Oldham Academy North, added: “We would not publish anything that we knowingly knew was factually incorrect.

“It was an innocent error. The moment it was drawn to our attention by the Chronicle, we withdrew the story.”