A free reign?

Not many barristers have opened a Free School, but I’m one of them: I’m the chair of governors at the East London Science School, which opened in September 2013. Consequently, I have a good idea of the potential legal pitfalls of setting up a free school, and the extent to which this will generate work for lawyers.

 

As to work for lawyers, although presently there are only around 200 Free Schools in the UK, there will be many more in the future. This is for two reasons. First, there is a severe shortage of school places: the Department for Education (DfE) has already allocated funding for 400,000 new places by 2018. Second, under the “Free School presumption” introduced from 2012 by the coalition government, most new schools will be Free Schools (see s 6A of the Education and Inspections Act 2006). One sign of this changing picture is that, as a direct result of the Free School presumption, the New Schools Network sends near weekly e-mails to potential Free School proprietors concerning local