free school

plural free schools

1. educationAn educational institution that provides tuition-free schooling, often with greater autonomy than traditional government oversight; a public school.

   Synonyms: state school

2. educationAn alternative school focusing on student freedom, democratic self-governance, and self-directed learning, often operating outside traditional curriculum constraint.

   The Germans had a free school, rather like King Alfred School, in London. A school with co-education, much freedom, no punishments, no rewards. But it contended that the school must mould the child.

   1927, Alexander Sutherland Neill, The Problem Child, page 209