Statutory guidance

School organisation: local-authority-maintained schools

Statutory guidance about making organisation changes to local-authority-maintained schools, including school closure.

Published 28 January 2014
Last updated 8 April 2016 — see all updates

• From: Department for Education

• Applies to: England

Documents

Making 'prescribed alterations' to local-authority-maintained schools

Ref: DFE-00104-2016 PDF, 801KB, 50 pages

Deciding prescribed alteration and establishment and discontinuance proposals

Ref: DFE-00105-2016 PDF, 477KB, 25 pages

Opening and closing local-authority-maintained schools

Ref: DFE-00106-2016 PDF, 522KB, 28 pages

Details

These documents are for:

• governing bodies
• local authorities
• decision makers

They describe opening, closing, or making school organisation changes to local-authority-maintained schools.

They set out how you can make those changes, and the areas where you must follow a statutory process.

This guidance is based on:

• The School Organisation (Prescribed Alterations to Maintained Schools) (England) Regulations 2013
• The School Organisation (Establishment and Discontinuance of Schools) Regulations 2013

Statutory guidance sets out what schools and local authorities must do to comply with the law. You should follow the guidance unless you have a very good reason not to.

Published 28 January 2014
Last updated 8 April 2016 + show all updates

1. 8 April 2016 We have comprehensively reviewed and updated all 3 documents. The changes include corrections to discrepancies in the guidance on making ‘prescribed alterations’ to local-authority-maintained schools.
2. 11 February 2016 Updated page to explain that we are currently reviewing our guidance to local-authority-maintained schools. We will update it shortly.
3. 28 January 2014 First published.