Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what her policy is on opening up school facilities to the local community for use outside the school day.

Schools play an important role in supporting their local communities and often make land available in various ways for a variety of community uses alongside their core education purpose.

We support these efforts and the academy funding agreement contains a specific provision stating that “the Academy Trust must ensure that the academy is at the heart of its community, promoting community cohesion and sharing facilities with other schools and the wider community”.

Decisions on making specific facilities available are for the individual school.