Using this guidance
What you need to know about legal requirements, the 5 pillars of academy trust quality and resources from third parties.
In this guidance:
- must is a legal or regulatory requirement or duty which must be complied with
- should is the minimum good practice which should be applied (unless it can be demonstrated that an alternative approach better suits the circumstances)
Where neither a must or should is used, the content refers to a generally held view of high-quality governance.
Additional governance expectations or arrangements may be in place for specific groups of academies, for example by diocesan authorities, academy sponsors or multi-academy trusts (MATs). This guidance refers to them where relevant, but does not aim to cover them comprehensively.
As part of the guidance on Commissioning high quality trusts, the Department for Eduaction (DfE) published 5 pillars of academy trust quality.
Annex A: trust quality descriptions sets out the 5 pillars of academy trust quality. The trust quality descriptions cover:
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High-quality and inclusive education
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School improvement
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Workforce
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Finance and operations
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Governance and leadership
This guidance has been structured around the governance and leadership pillar.
Many third party organisations provide support for governing bodies, and we recognise the value that these resources bring to help support effective governance.
Some resources are only available through membership subscription, but links have been provided for free guidance where available. This is intended as further reading, and not a formal endorsement of the content.