Establishing a strong governance structure in the pre-opening period is essential to the continued success of your trust and of your free school. During pre-opening, you will need to submit a complete governance plan to the DfE for approval. This guidance aims to provide an overview of what needs to be included in the governance plan you will submit to the DfE. It includes practical guidance and lessons learned from groups that have opened free schools in the past. 

Your group may benefit from more tailored advice from our governance associates, you may wish to consider the NSN Essentials Advisory Services or our Project Management Partnership. These services provide access to illustrations, exemplars and expert guidance developed to support school governance and the effective growth of MATs. 

Finding and securing a site for your school, as well as designing and constructing your school’s buildings, will mean working closely with agencies within the DfE, especially Free Schools Capital (FSC) and their property company, LocatED. The path to a well sited, fit for purpose and inspiring new school requires difficult decisions as well as risks, particularly regarding time and cost. Handling this requires active management and careful communication with your prospective parents and other stakeholders.

To achieve the best outcome requires attention to details foreign to normal day-to-day school management like property management, school design and operations. The FSC are the experts from a technical and financial point of view but they do not know your school, your priorities or your ethos. They base their decisions on generic building bulletins, health and safety documentation and legal and capital requirements. Your involvement is critical to achieving the best outcome for you.

This guide includes a glossary and is provided as part of NSN’s Foundation Advisory Service. It should be read in conjunction with NSN’s primer on Finding a Site: Introductory guidance . A more detailed guide including checklists and tools is available alongside specialist site related support under the NSN Site Advisory Service.

In collaboration with NSN, the ESFA have developed the following resources to ensure that free school groups understand the meaning of Heads of Terms, a key pre-opening milestone; the timescales involved in securing a free school site; and how to interact with the different roles within the ESFA. Approval to Handover is a chart that outlines the various stages and timescales involved in securing a free school site and building from the point an application is approved into pre-opening to the handover of a site to the academy trust.

NSN has designed the Site Advisory Service to assist groups in navigating the very complex issues associated with translating an educational vision into a school building that meets the needs of pupils and staff. This service includes very detailed resources that complement and supplement the support provided by the DfE and ESFA. 

In collaboration with NSN, the ESFA have developed the following resources to ensure that free school groups understanding the meaning of Heads of Terms, a key pre-opening milestone; the timescales involved in securing a free school site; and how to interact with the different roles within the ESFA. Free Schools Capital Project Team is an organogram of the ESFA’s Free Schools Capital Project Team, detailing roles and responsibilities, to illustrate the escalation route that free schools should employ in the event of difficulties arising during the completion of the capital project. The resource lists issues that could arise during each stage of the development of a site and provides appropriate points of contact

NSN has designed the Site Advisory Service to assist groups in navigating the very complex issues associated with translating an educational vision into a school building that meets the needs of pupils and staff. This service includes very detailed resources that complement and supplement the support provided by the DfE and ESFA. 

Establishing a strong governance structure in the pre-opening period is essential to the continued success of your MAT and of your free school. During pre-opening, you will need to submit a complete governance plan to the DfE for approval. If you run one or more academies already, this plan will need to include details of how you will manage the growth of your MAT. NSN has produced a guide on things you must consider when developing your governance as your MAT grows and as your free school opens.

Your group may benefit from more tailored advice from our governance associates, you may wish to consider the NSN Essentials Advisory Services or our Project Management Partnership. These services provide access to illustrations, exemplars and expert guidance developed to support school governance and the effective growth of MATs. 

A key task of the pre-opening period is recruiting your first cohort of pupils. Pupil recruitment affects almost every other aspect of your project: they determine your financial viability, your curriculum planning, and staff recruitment. Your group will need to work hard to ensure that you market your school effectively and accurately and NSN has produced some guidance about how you might do this.

During pre-opening, you will also need to develop an admissions policy and finalise your admissions arrangements. The DfE has produced several documents on various aspects of free school admissions and NSN has produced a comprehensive guide.

Ultimately, what works best will depend on your local circumstances and along with advice tailored to your needs, a range of best practice case studies, exemplars and tools are available through the NSN Essentials Advisory Service and Project Management Partnership. 

A key task of the pre-opening period is recruiting your first cohort of pupils. Pupil recruitment affects almost every other aspect of your project: they determine your financial viability, your curriculum planning, and staff recruitment. Your group will need to work hard to ensure that you market your school effectively and accurately and NSN has produced some guidance about how you might do this.

During pre-opening, you will also need to develop an admissions policy and finalise your admissions arrangements. The DfE has produced several documents on various aspects of free school admissions and NSN has produced a comprehensive guide.

Ultimately, what works best will depend on your local circumstances and along with advice tailored to your needs, a range of best practice case studies, exemplars and tools are available through the NSN Essentials Advisory Service and Project Management Partnership. 

As you enter the pre-opening period, you will receive a Project Development Grant (PDG) from the DfE designed to cover all non-capital costs associated with setting up your free school. You need to consider carefully how you will spend your money as efficiently as possible and to ensure the best value for money. Drawing on our associates’ expertise and previous free schools’ experience, we have put together a budgeting tool which will help you decide how to allocate your money according to different work streams. We have also put together some guidance around following public procurement regulations when spending your PDG.

The Essentials Advisory Service and the project management partnership take into account the fact that finance will have implications for the effectiveness of Delivery across all other work streams. The resources and tools that have been developed for these services have been designed to support schools to extract maximum value through careful financial planning.