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School federation (England and Wales)
Group of schools in England and Wales / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A school federation[lower-alpha 1] 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,[3] collaboration[4] or collegiate[5]). Soft federations with a statutory committee can be called soft governance federations.[6] Schools in a federation are known as federated schools.[7][8]
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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.[9] Academies and academy trusts were originally unable to join or form statutory federations, but this restriction was removed by the Education Act 2011.[10]