FH Mum
What I want people to be really aware of (rather than getting into PM with you) is how important a criteria distance is and how this 'choice' won't really be one for many people. This does assume that your school is going to be oversubscribed, but since every school in Forest Hill already is by a number of times I would be very surprised if it wasn't. But I suppose you probably can't comment on that at the moment, not having a location and not being part of the formal application process yet.

One of the most useful things about the Lewisham Starting Booklet 2011/2012 (see link below) is the table setting out the distances that children have to live within to get into the school last year. This is complicated and varies each year because of bulge classes and birth rate but has been getting smaller and smaller. On page 26 and 27 this information is set out for the community schools, later in the document the voluntary aided, church schools and academy primary schools are set out and it would appear that they can CHOOSE whether to give this information (some do some don't). But in all cases the distances are very small.

http://www.lewisham.gov.uk/EducationAndL...School.htm)

My concern is that parents expectation of an extra sort of choice (see Michael's comment) on top of community schools, faith schools, academy primary schools and voluntary aided schools isn't really one at all unless you happen to live within a couple of hundred metres of several of them? I am not sure whether that matters?

It would appear to me that the common application form will probably include free schools because it already includes all of the other types of school that exist and that are paid for in any way by public money. This would be a very good thing as it means that at least the application process is coordinated and not open to 'interpretation'.

Anyway the real point of this is the need for transparency, openness and consultation in the application process for all publicly funded schools. Hopefully that will be the case.