What is a Federation?

A Federation is one or more schools that have made a formal commitment to work together under a single Governing Body. This enables the schools in the Federation to:

• work together efficiently and sustainably to raise standards,
• improve services and increase opportunities for pupils and staff; and
• share resources, staff, expertise and facilities.

The legislation that allows schools to federate is set out in regulations made under sections 24 and 25 of the Education Act 2002.

The benefits of Federation

Working together in a Federation brings important benefits to St Francis and St Joseph's Catholic Primary Schools. It enables them to:

• Share the knowledge, expertise and ideas of individual members of staff
• Re-negotiate contracts and deals for the Federation to achieve a discount for both schools
• Provide staff with excellent training and development opportunities within the Federation

Leadership of our Federation

Both our schools share the same Governing body but each school has its own Headteacher.

St Francis and St Joseph's work very closely together however, they continue to be separate schools:

• Each school has its own name, identity, logo and uniform.
• Pupils stay at the same school site for all their lessons.
• Essex County Council considers each school separately when they are processing applications for school places.
• Ofsted carry out separate inspections of each school.
• The Department for Education publish separate entries for each school in the performance tables