Nursery World - Free schools told they don't need qualified teachers

Free schools may not be required to employ qualified teachers, Nursery World has learned.

A Montessori free school which has been approved to go forward to the business case stage by education secretary Michael Gove has been told by officials that it will not need to employ teachers with Qualified Teacher Status.

The Discovery New School to be set up in Crawley, West Sussex, by Lindsay and Andrew Snowdon would become the first state-funded primary in the country to adopt a whole-school Montessori approach. Mr Snowdon told Nursery World the school would employ teachers with degrees but they have been told by the department that teachers do not have to have QTS.

'It's up to us to prove the teaching standard is appropriate,' he said.

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