Cameron Visits Local Free School

9 September 2011, 15:49 | Updated: 9 September 2011, 16:46

The Prime Ministers been telling Heart why he thinks we could be seeing hundreds more free schools opening in the next year.

After two free schools in Norfolk and Suffolk opened this week, David Cameron says he thinks we'll be getting more after seeing how popular the one in Norwich is.

He told us: "This one is massively over-subscribed.

"They had to pick the names of the pupils that wanted to come here out of a hat because so many parents wanted their children to come to this school as they believe it is going to be excellent."

The free schools can be run by parents, charities or teachers and don't have to follow the national curriculum.
He tells Heart: "The free schools are about giving parents a choice.

"Having new free schools provides more parents with what they want and it also provides that competition, that choice, that spur to impove that works in every other aspect of life and I don't see why it shouldn't work in education too."

In his speech he also talked about a review of the national curriculum that will see pupils focus on subjects like Algebra, Science and English Literature.

Mr Cameron also insisted that parents are to be held to account over their children's bad behaviour. As well as giving teachers' more powers to deal with unruly pupils, ``restoring discipline is also about what parents do'', he said.

David Cameron interview with Holly Jones

Simon Wright, MP for Norwich South