Academy conversion support grant: eligibility for £25,000 support grant

The Department for Education has made an important policy announcement relating to which schools are eligible to receive the Academy conversion support grant. From 1 September 2024, a maintained mainstream school which applies to convert to academy status will only be eligible for the £25k conversion support grant if they are joining an academy trust in a group with at least two other schools and are approved by the relevant regional director at the same time. There is no proposed change to the current rules which apply to the conversion of special schools and pupil referral units.

The support grant will not be dependent on the existing size of the academy trust, but what matters is the number of schools which are joining the academy trust. A single maintained mainstream school applying to convert and join an academy trust will not be eligible for the support grant unless there are two other schools which will also be joining the academy trust. The announcement does not state that the schools joining the academy trust need to be other converting mainstream schools. For example, one of the three joining schools could be an academy transferring from another academy trust – although only the converting schools would be eligible for the conversion support grant in this case.

It is not intended to change the conversion support grant for special schools and pupil referral units – these remain eligible for the support grant if applying to convert without other joining schools.

The effect of this change will need to be monitored but, in our view, it may encourage the formation of clusters of local schools who wish to join either an existing academy trust or form a new academy trust. Such schools will be able to continue to use the support grant to fund the project, and each converting school in the group will be eligible for the £25k grant.

For mainstream schools wishing to convert under the current eligibility criteria (that are not part of a group), there is an incentive to register your interest with the Department for Education by 26 April 2024, with the application for an academy order to be submitted by 7 June 2024. The regional director must also have approved the application by 1 September 2024 to receive the grant. If these deadlines are met, then a single maintained mainstream school, which is not part of a group, will be eligible for the support grant.

If you would like to discuss how the policy change affects your school or academy trust, then please get in contact.