Asked by: Lord Taylor of Holbeach (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government why a freestanding pre-school is not permitted to be a member of a Multi Academy Trust (MAT) unless it is partnered with a single primary school; and what steps they intend to take to allow such pre-schools to join MATs without being subject to that requirement.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Academies are state-funded schools that have become independent from local authority control. Multi-academy trusts (MATs) are charities that have responsibility for running a number of academies.
Most freestanding pre-schools are private, voluntary, or independent (PVI) childcare providers which are businesses or organisations that are not schools. As such these organisations are not eligible to become academies, and therefore, not able to be included in a MAT in their own right. Schools that become academies in their own right are also currently required by law to have pupils of compulsory school age (aged 5 or above). Other definitions of an academy are set out in the Academies Act 2010.
Therefore, a pre-school would have to be fully constituted as part of a primary school’s academy organisation and provision to be able to be part of its MAT. It would then be subject to the governance arrangements of that MAT. Therefore, it would be for the MAT and the Regional Schools Commissioner to ultimately decide any individual arrangements for that provider and which schools it would be able to work with. Changing these procedures would require a change to primary legislation and there are no current plans to make such a change. The Regional Schools Commissioner for East Midlands and the Humber can be contacted at: emh.rsc@education.gov.uk.
A minority of pre-schools are maintained nursery schools (MNSs), which are an important part of the early years sector and provide valuable services, especially in disadvantaged areas. MNSs come under local authority control but are also currently unable to legally become academies. Originally, when academisation was established as a route for schools, maintained nursery schools were not included. We continue to keep under review the case for enabling maintained nursery schools to convert to academy status and join MATs.