School federation (England and Wales)

rdf:langString School federation (England and Wales)

rdf:langString A school federation is a group of schools in England and Wales which, as defined in the Education Act 2002, operate under a statutory shared governing body (a hard federation or hard governance federation), or whose governing bodies form a shared committee with collaborative terms of governance (a soft federation, collaboration or collegiate). Soft federations with a statutory committee can be called soft governance federations. Schools in a federation are known as federated schools. A number of federations in England have become multi-academy trusts, groups of academy schools operating under a shared governing body through a different legal framework to hard federations. Many of these continue to call themselves federations, such as the Harris Federation, and some have remained federations in the non-academy school sector, such as the Primary Advantage Federation. Academies and academy trusts were originally unable to join or form statutory federations, but this restriction was removed by the Education Act 2011.