How on earth are "free" schools going to work in reality?

[notsureatall]

I really don't get this. Can someone explain?

Where I live, there are some areas crying out for new infants schools. Kids from those areas are routinely sent to schools miles away.

Suppose some of the parents get together and decide to start a school of their own, wouldn't it take so long to set up that their own kids won't actually benefit from it?

And would they have to stick to the local authority's admissions criteria - in which case some of them might not even get a place if they don't live close enough?

Is there a link?

If you had children just starting primary school, were unhappy with the secondary schools in the area and you could get sufficient local support, attract teaching staff and find a premises to convert or land to build on... then you could have a school up and running in a few years. Or you may wish to get involved for more public-spirited reasons that it benefiting your own children, of course.

Here's an article on Free Schools from today's Guardian

And in answer to the second question... I think part of the deal is that these schools will be able to set their own admissions criteria and have their own ethos to a greater degree than is currently the case. Then again, the new government is promising more autonomy for all state schools.

Am marking this and will be back later to read the article as I also have all sorts of questions about how these schools are going to operate in practice.

Have just seen Toby Young talking about the school he and some others are trying to set up in London. He said to make it fair, they'd probably have a lottery to decide admissions which means there's a chance his kids might not get in.

Why on earth would most people want to spend months and years setting up their own school if their kids couldn't be guaranteed a place?

At least he'd get a good book out of it though