- London
- commercial; charities & social enterprise; practitioners
- i.hempseed@hempsons.co.uk
- 020 7484 7530
Advice on federating, foundation status and other operational issues
The current system of maintained schools was established by the Education Act 1996 and the School Standards and Framework Act 1998. Although many have converted to academies in the past few years, there remains a significant number of maintained schools, particularly at primary level.
Our lawyers have recent experience of advising maintained schools on federating (and defederating), converting to a foundation school and acquiring a foundation (and ceasing to have a foundation) as well as everyday operational issues relating to safeguarding, admissions, pupil behaviour and exclusions as well as challenging Ofsted reports. We also advise maintained schools on converting to academy status as single or multi-academy trusts.
What we do
We provide specialist legal services to maintained schools in the following areas:
- Academy and MAT conversions
- Admissions and admission appeals
- Behaviour and exclusions
- Charity law
- Federation and defederation
- Governance
- Ofsted inspections
- Parental complaints
- Safeguarding and child protection
- School collaborations
- Terms and conditions of employment
In addition, we have specialist expertise in other areas of law:
- Commercial contracts
- Construction/BSF/PFI projects
- Data protection
- Dispute resolution
- Employment and discrimination
- Funding
- Freedom of information
- Health and safety
- Information technology
- Intellectual property
- Outsourcing
- Property
- Public procurement
