School federation (England and Wales)

A school federation, often referred to simply as a "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.

A 2009 study from the National College for School Leadership identified six broad and sometimes overlapping types of federation, excluding hard and soft federations:

Academy federation is often used synonymously with multi-academy trust. Multi-academy trusts are sometimes described as another type of federation and the term academy federation has increasingly fallen into disuse, with these federations instead being incorrectly called multi-academy trusts. Likewise, many federations that have since become multi-academy trusts continue to call themselves federations. Multi-academy trusts and academy federations operate through different legal frameworks and are structured differently. It is also common for a multi-academy trust to be a national body, whereas academy federations are usually regional.

Prior to the assent of the Education Act 1980 it was common for schools across the United Kingdom to share one governing body. This practice was prohibited by the act, although local education authorities were still able to unify two primary schools under one governing body as long as one of these schools were voluntary aided or controlled. This was done to support the Thatcher government's goal of giving all state schools a unique identity. The practice of schools sharing governing bodies was modified further in the Education Act 1986, which legally extended to England and Wales. The act restricted the primary schools automatically eligible to share a governing body to those located in the same local area; attempts by a local education authority to establish a shared governing body for schools outside this criterion now required consent from the Education Secretary. The Education Secretary could now also dissolve these governing bodies at will. These modifications were slightly altered in the Education Act 1996, however the Blair government's School Standards and Frameworks Act 1998 repealed its provisions and all shared governing bodies between schools were dissolved on the day of its assent.

The 3E's Enterprises "federation" of schools was launched in 2001 under the leadership of Kinghurst City Technology College. The federation's other members were King's College and Kings International College and three companies from the private sector. This federation aimed to spread Kinghurst CTC's success to failing schools and lacked the centralised legal framework seen in later federations, with it instead operating as a loose alliance of schools. It was non-profit as any profit made went back into the federation.

Plans to introduce more federations were announced by Education Secretary Estelle Morris in December 2001, a move that had the backing of Prime Minister Tony Blair. Failing schools and their successful counterparts would federate under the orders of Ofsted, the non-ministerial government department responsible for overseeing standards in the English education system, and privately funded executive headteachers would lead them through a shared governing body. Her successor Charles Clarke enabled the legal implementation of these federations through the Education Act 2002, with the first being introduced in September 2003.

The first federations were often established through a brokered agreement with local authorities. Local authorities did this to improve their schools and find ways around a lack of recruitable headteachers. This was the same reason for creating school federations in the Netherlands. The first local education authorities to implement federations in their areas were Bradford City Council, Birmingham City Council, Essex County Council and Gateshead Borough Council.