Advice needed - creating a new free school

[cnaik]

Dear all, I live in an area where there is a real shortage of secondary school places and have joined a steering group of local parents looking to facilitate the opening of a new co ed non faith secondary.

It's very early stages but would like to start on the right foot and with eyes open to the pitfalls. Any advice welcome.

Thanks

Support your local schools and see what can be done to alleviate the shortage of places.
But I suspect that's not what you want to hear.

What stopmithering said.

How would supporting local schools help? Clearly they aren't able to offer enough places for demand which is why the OP is involved in the new venture.

email Toby Young? He has a column you can read too if you can stand his smugness.

The funding for the free school could be invested in existing schools to expand and improve them starlight.

But they don't need improving, they need expanding, which is different and in many ways more problematic.

Thank you for such a quick response stopmithering but I'm not sure what you mean by "that's not what I want to hear"

As I said in my post there are a shortage of local places, it's not that I don't like the local places, I'm no snob. My eldest went to our nearest primary school that was in special measures at the time and very unpopular, we joined the governing body and the PTA, supported it then, support it now.

On the other hand if by that comment you meant that your post doesn't answer my question then, on the contrary, I am equally happy to receive advice about how very very oversubscribed secondaries can be assisted to alleviate the shortfall.

And how would a group of parents GET the funding to give to the existing schools?

Get expert advice from those who have done it or are doing it - round here we have one free school that's up and running, and a couple of other groups trying to establish schools. The open school and one of the would-be schools are in partnerships with the CFBT.

Good luck!

I believe that's the plan - to approach a (smallish) provider. I'm new to this so not sure if that amounts to a free school or not. It's certainly not anticipated to be a Toby Young job

There was a recent select committee about free schools and the view seemed to be that parents working alone tend not to get too far. It seems that involving one of Gove's chums in an academy chain is the best way to get past the "high bar" required of free school applicants. Don't involve a university as they are likely to be Marxist enemies of promise.