Types of Schools

This section provides information on the different types of schools available to children and how staff are employed.

In these schools, the Local Authority is the employer, and owns the land.
Teachers are employed on the national terms and conditions as stated in the STPCD and the Burgundy Book.

These schools are still maintained by the Local Authority (LA) and the funding is provided by the DfE through the LA, although the land is owned by a charity, often a church.
Governing bodies in VA schools are the employer and have the freedom to adopt their own pay arrangements for support staff and their own HR policies and procedures. As they are the employer, and not the local authority or the Diocese, comparisons cannot be drawn with staff in other establishments which might have implications for equal pay.

Academy staff can be employed on any terms and conditions. There are no statutory requirements in the various Education Acts that place limitations on the employment arrangements in academies, and the national terms and conditions for teachers and support staff do not have to be followed.
Staff who have transferred with TUPE rights have their terms and conditions protected if they transfer in the same post, unless there are economic, technical or organisational reasons to justify changing the terms.

The Board of Trustees or Governing Body is the employer in an independent school and the employment arrangements are the same as for an academy. However, there may be local agreements put in place by the employer if they own a number of schools under one umbrella organisation and in this case equal pay issues could arise across the organisation.
Independent schools are not required by law to employ teachers with Qualified Teacher Status and new teachers can only serve their induction year in certain authorised independent schools.

Free schools are established in a similar way to Academies - the Charitable Trust is the employer and they have similar freedoms to Academies in the way staff are employed. They will have been created by either transferring staff from an Independent school or by recruiting staff to a brand new school. This means they are unlikely to inherit the national pay and conditions of employment through the TUPE arrangements as many academies do.
If staff have been transferred from an independent school then their terms and conditions will transfer with them through the TUPE arrangements unless the terms have been varied as part of the transfer for a fair Economic, Technical or Organisational (ETO) reason.

Governing bodies in Foundation schools are the employer and have the freedom to adopt their own pay arrangements for support staff and their own HR policies and procedures.
Foundation schools pay teachers in line with the School Teachers Pay and Conditions Document (STPCD) which is agreed nationally by the National Employers Organisation for Schools Teachers (NEOST) consulting with the six professional associations for teachers.

These schools are established in a similar way to Foundation Schools but the school is ‘sponsored’ usually by a trust made up of local industry, FE and Higher Education establishments and other interested parties. In all other respects the employment arrangements are the same as for a Foundation School.

These schools are similar to an Independent School in that they are privately owned and run but they are established to meet the needs of young people with Special Educational Needs and they are non-profit making. Their articles and instruments of government are agreed by the Secretary of State and almost all pupils are funded by various Local Authority clients.
There is no state control over the employment of staff in these schools but many of them do employ staff on the national teacher’s pay scales and terms and conditions.

The Governance arrangements in a Voluntary Controlled School are the same as in a Community School but a religious organisation - often a Church owns the buildings and the land. The employment of staff is the same arrangements as in a community school.