Statutory guidance

School organisation: local-authority-maintained schools

Statutory guidance for proposers and decision makers about opening, closing or making organisation changes to local-authority-maintained schools.

• From: Department for Education
• Published: 28 January 2014
• Last updated: 2 October 2024 — See all updates

Applies to England

Documents

Opening and closing maintained schools

PDF, 689 KB, 53 pages

Making significant changes (‘prescribed alterations’) to maintained schools

PDF, 898 KB, 61 pages

Details

These documents are for:

• local authorities
• governing bodies
• diocese or other relevant religious authorities

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
• Education and Inspections Act 2006

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.

Trustees of the school, diocese or relevant diocesan board, or any other relevant faith body, parents and those affected by a proposal may also find this information useful.

Published 28 January 2014
Last updated 2 October 2024 + show all updates

1. 2 October 2024

   Updated guidance to reflect Ofsted's removal of single word judgements.

2. 30 January 2023

   We have reviewed this guidance and removed out-of-date information. The legislation remains the same.

3. 5 November 2019

   Updated 'Opening and closing maintained schools' document.

4. 15 November 2018

   Removed 'Deciding prescribed alteration and establishment and discontinuance proposals'.

5. 15 November 2018

   Removed 2016 document 'Opening and closing local-authority-maintained schools'. Has been replaced with document from November 2018.

6. 15 November 2018

   Replaced file 'Making significant changes to maintained schools' with 'Opening and closing maintained schools'.

7. 25 October 2018

   Attached new version of 'Making significant changes ('prescribed alterations') to maintained schools' to update the guidance from 2016.

8. 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.

9. 11 February 2016

   Updated page to explain that we are currently reviewing our guidance to local-authority-maintained schools. We will update it shortly.

10. 28 January 2014

    First published.