A federation is a governance structure whereby two or more schools share a single governing body under section 24 of the Education Act 2002, sometimes called a 'hard' federation.
Alternatively, schools might chose to have statutory collaborative governance arrangements involving a joint committee(s) to the governing bodies of one or more schools under section 26 of the Education Act 2002, sometimes called a 'soft' federation.
Regardless of the model, all schools retain their separate identity and continue to receive individual budget shares.
Working together through formal shared governance structures enables schools to raise standards and maintain local provision by sharing resources, staff, expertise, and facilities.
The variety of models offered by federation make it adaptable to suit individual contexts, and local needs and objectives.
A shared governing body provides an effective and accountable mechanism for schools to pool resources and staff, release strategic capacity in the senior management team, and gain economies of scale and efficiencies.
Sharing specialist staff and pooling curriculum expertise and materials can enable schools to deliver an enriched pupil offer.
Through federation and other partnership arrangements schools can:
extend the breadth and quality of provision; respond better to pupils'
wider needs;
widen the impact of our strongest school leaders, teachers and governors;
widen opportunities for collaborative professional development; and
deliver greater value for money.
The ability of federate under a single governing body could also be of particular benefit to small schools or schools in more isolated rural areas, opening up opportunities to share management and governing body responsibility and curriculum expertise.
Is there evidence that partnerships improve standards?
There are numerous examples of schools thriving under formal partnerships and research has highlighted a range of benefits for schools and staff. These include an enhanced curriculum, more opportunities for pupils and greater personalisation which can lead to school improvement, new training opportunities for staff and economic advantages.
Will schools in a federation be inspected jointly or separately?
Currently, schools are subject to separate inspection reports, and will complete separate Self Evaluation Forms. However, the White Paper published on 30 June has committed Ofsted to exploring the development of co-ordinated joint inspections for federations, joint sixth forms, and where there is an executive head over two schools and how the self-evaluation form can be developed to reflect federation.
Under The School Governance (Federations) (England) Regulations 2007, only maintained schools are able to federate under a single governing body. However, the Collaboration Regulations issued in May 2007 permit maintained schools to establish a 'joint strategic committee' with FE institutions.
Can HE institutions be part of, or work with federations?
They cannot be part of a federation, though they can work with schools in other forms of partnership. They could also become involved with a Trust School and support schools in that way. Further information can be found at http://www.trustandfoundationschools.org.uk/
Could there be a federation between two faith schools of different faiths?
In principle, yes, the regulations allow for different categories of schools to federate, there are also examples of faith schools federating with community schools.
Schools wishing to work together can do so through a shared trust, a federation or both. A trust could support all schools in a federation, or a trust could support collaboration between groups of schools without the need for a federation - this might be necessary if the schools were too far apart for a single governing body to be feasible.
Federation can help rural small primary schools to remain sustainable on separate sites. The shared governing body provides an effective and accountable mechanism for schools to pool resources and staff, release strategic capacity in the senior management team, and gain economies of scale and efficiencies that enable them to remain viable.
Sharing specialist staff and pooling curriculum expertise and materials can enable small schools to deliver an enriched primary curriculum - e.g. sharing specialist language teacher.
All the schools in the federation remain individual schools. Therefore the governing body of the federation receives the delegated budget for each of the individual schools.
The Federation Regulations modify the school funding provisions of the SSFA and allow the governing body of the federation to spend an individual school's delegated budget on any purposes of that federated school and also any purposes of any other federated school within the federation (regulation 36). Schools must still account for each delegated budget separately though.
The White Paper published on 30 June made a commitment to allow additional funding flexibilities for schools working in federations - to pool budgets and resources.
Is there any DCSF funding available to support the establishment of a federation?
There is no central funding available. Where local authorities wish a successful school to assist an under-performing school through federation, the LA may offer some support, but this is for local discussion.
Can the Local Authority insist that schools federate?
The decision to federate is taken by the governing body not the local authority. See the following link for the relevant regulations: http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2007/uksi_20070960_en_2 except in some instances where a local authority can intervene.
For example - where a school is in special measures or a warning notice has been served (and not complied with or appealed); it is possible for a local authority to use its powers of intervention under s63 of the Education and Inspections Act 2006 to require a governing body to establish a federation with a strong partner. But this power does not xtend to the strong school governing body.
Do Governing Bodies need to notify the Department of their intention to federate?
The School Organisation and Governance (Amendment) (England) Regulations 2009 requires Governing Bodies to notify the SoS (via our own federations mailbox (federations.mailbox@dcsf.gsi.gov.uk) of the publication of their proposals to federate and the outcome of their decision.
The position regarding staffing is that each school within the federation is still a separate school. This means that the question of who employs staff depends on the category of the particular school.
If the federation is a mix of different categories of schools then the employer of staff may be different for the different schools within the federation. For instance if the federation is made up of one community or VC school and one foundation or VA school then the employer of staff in the federated community school will be the LA.
The employer of staff at the federated foundation or VA school will be the governing body of the federation (and staff will transfer from the employment of the governing body of the foundation/ VA school to the employment of the governing body of the federation on the federation date - see regulation 12.
What is an executive head? What are the models of leadership we can use?
Executive heads provide strategic leadership across two or more schools whilst also being the substantive head of each of the schools in the partnership, supported by a Head of School/Deputy Head/Assistant Head in each individual school in the partnership.
Alternatively there might be a mixed model where the executive head is the substantive head teacher of one or more of the schools and one or more other schools in the partnership might also have their own substantive head teacher.
The DCSF, on the recommendation of the School Teachers' Review Body (STRB), is updating the Teachers' Pay and Condition document to reflect interim pay arrangements for heads who take responsibility for more than one school.
