Compliance hub
Use our guidance and resources to help you stay compliant with key areas of school leadership
Curriculum and assessment
Use our guides to help you comply with curriculum and assessment requirements. Learn how Ofsted inspects your curriculum.
Curriculum requirements: academies
If you're reviewing or updating your curriculum, find out what you need to cover to stay compliant with requirements and meet DfE expectations.
Curriculum requirements: maintained schools
All maintained schools must follow the National Curriculum. If you're reviewing or updating your curriculum, find out what you need to cover to stay compliant with requirements and meet DfE expectations.
Special schools: curriculum requirements
Learn about the curriculum requirements for different types of special schools. Find out whether special schools must follow age-related expectations, and if there is a set amount of time you should allocate to curriculum subjects.
Alternative provision: curriculum requirements and examples
Alternative provision (AP) settings, including pupil referral units (PRUs), aren't required to follow the National Curriculum, but they do have to provide a good alternative curriculum. Find out what this includes, and see examples of curriculum offers from PRUs and AP academies.
Key Stage 1 and 2 assessments
Find answers to FAQs on how to comply with statutory requirements for Key Stage (KS) 1 and 2 assessments. Use our checklist of key dates and deadlines, and know what to report to your local authority and parents/carers.
How Ofsted inspects your curriculum
Ofsted's 'quality of education' measure puts your curriculum in the spotlight. Understand how inspectors will judge your intent, implementation and impact, and the evidence they'll consider.
Financial management
From budget planning to buying goods, work and services, use our resources to help you comply with financial management requirements. Get to grips with how to spend and report on the pupil premium.
Monthly financial management for academies
Get to grips with what you need to prepare and do when it comes to monthly budget monitoring reports for academy trusts.
Returns required from academies
Find out what data and returns you must submit and when – including your audited accounts, budget forecast return, school resource management self-assessment and teachers' pension returns.
Budget planning resource hub
Use our guidance and resources to help you through the whole process of planning your budget and getting it approved by governors.
How to report on the pupil premium
Get to grips with your pupil premium reporting requirements for 2024/25, and see examples of other schools' published strategy statements.
Spending the pupil premium
Be clear on how you must allocate pupil premium funds and how to use the DfE's 'menu of approaches'. Read our FAQs on what you can and can't spend the pupil premium on and how it applies to looked-after children.
How to buy goods, works or services
As a maintained school or academy, you have a duty to get the best value for money from contracts you enter into. Follow our step-by-step procurement guide and use our downloadable flowchart to make sure you're buying in the right way.
Health and safety
Use our checklists, risk assessments and guidance to help you comply with your statutory requirements when it comes to keeping staff, pupils and visitors safe in school.
Health and safety audit: template and guidance
Use our template to help you conduct a health and safety audit in your school.
School trip health and safety: planning checklist and guidance
Ahead of a school trip, use our checklist and find guidance to help you feel confident you’ve considered everything from a health, safety and safeguarding perspective.
Fire safety in schools: requirements and guidance
Understand the statutory requirements for fire safety in schools, including risk assessments, fire alarms and staff training. Find guidance about limiting flammable materials and get expert advice from the London Fire Brigade and Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service.
Health and safety duties of trusts: overview template and how to comply
As a trust, you have health and safety duties because you're the employer. Be clear on what these are and understand how to fulfil them. Use our overview tool to help you keep track of and monitor your requirements across your trust.
Administering medicines in school: guidance
Get advice on administering medication to pupils in school, including on school trips and in the early years. Download our printable sheet of 'dos and don'ts' that staff can refer to.
COSHH: risk assessment template and guidance
You need to have risk assessments for the control of substances hazardous to health (COSHH). Use our template to help you, plus see the rules on what your assessments need to cover and get tips on how to carry one out.
Health and safety policy: model and examples
All schools must have a health and safety policy. Use our model policy for your school or trust, which includes an accident report form, to stay compliant.
Recruitment checks
Know your section 128 from your barred list check? Use our checklist and cheat sheet to make sure you've carried out the right checks on the right people, and find advice on your single central record (SCR) requirements.
DBS checks: summary of requirements
Download our summary table to quickly identify who needs which type of DBS check. Use our template risk assessment to decide whether to accept an existing DBS certificate, and find guidance on staff starting before their check comes through.
Recruitment checks: cheat sheet
Do you know your DBS check from your section 128? Barred list check from prohibition from teaching? Learn the difference between the key recruitment checks, why they're important and how to do them. Download our cheat sheet for a handy reference.
Checks for new school staff, governors and trustees
Use our checklist to stay compliant with all the pre-employment checks you need to carry out and record for new staff, volunteers, governors and trustees.
Single central record: requirements and template
Save time and stay compliant by using our single central record (SCR) template. Find a summary of what must be recorded and which staff the document must cover, in line with Keeping Children Safe in Education guidance.
Safer recruitment policy: model
Use and adapt our model safer recruitment procedures (which you'll find in appendix 2 of our model child protection policy) to help save you time and stay compliant.
Safeguarding
Use our audit and model procedures to help you meet the requirements set out in Keeping Children Safe in Education (KCSIE).
Keeping Children Safe in Education (KCSIE): summary
Read the key points in KCSIE 2024 and know where to look for information on specific areas of safeguarding in the statutory guidance.
Child protection policy: model
Make sure your child protection policy reflects Keeping Children Safe in Education 2024. If you previously adapted our model, use our summary of what's changed and why to help you decide what changes to make. If you have your own policy, use our checklist to make sure it covers everything it needs to.
Safeguarding training requirements
All staff should have safeguarding and child protection training. Find out what this should include, and how this differs for the DSL, headteacher, governors and volunteers. Use The Key Safeguarding to help you save time and stay compliant.
Safeguarding audit
Audit your current safeguarding arrangements to make sure you're up to date with the latest statutory safeguarding guidance, and in line with Keeping Children Safe in Education (KCSIE) 2023.
Single central record: requirements and template
Save time and stay compliant by using our single central record (SCR) template. Find a summary of what must be recorded and which staff the document must cover, in line with Keeping Children Safe in Education guidance.
How Ofsted inspects safeguarding
Understand what Ofsted expects to see in your safeguarding arrangements, and what evidence inspectors will collect during an inspection. Download our list of questions Ofsted might ask about child protection, including how you handle sexual harassment and abuse in your school.
School website
Make sure your school website stands up to scrutiny with our checklists of requirements.
Website requirements: academies and academy trusts
Find out what individual academies need to publish online, and if you’re in a multi-academy trust, what your trust website needs to include. Use our checklists to help you comply.
Website requirements: maintained schools
Use our checklist to find out what information you need to publish on your school's website and how to keep your website compliant. Understand what data to publish for nurseries, pupil referral units, schools with small cohorts and special schools.
School websites: publishing curriculum information
Understand what you need to publish about your school's curriculum, and see examples of what other schools publish and in what format.
Publishing information: requirements for independent schools
Find out which information you're required to make available to parents and what to publish on your website. Use our checklist to help you stay compliant.
SEND
Understand your statutory duties when it comes to your SEND provision, in line with the SEND Code of Practice and the Equality Act 2010. Learn more about funding for pupils with special educational needs (SEN).
SEND Code of Practice: a summary
Read our summary to help you comply with the SEND Code of Practice. Find out how the EHC assessment process works, and share our handout with staff to help them understand their responsibilities under the code.
SEND provision: requirements and best practice audit
Complete our audit to have total confidence you've got everything in place for pupils with SEND and are meeting the statutory requirements of the SEND Code of Practice.
Curriculum accessibility for pupils with SEND: checklist
To help pupils with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) reach their full potential, they first must have equal access to your curriculum. Use our checklist to stay compliant with the Equality Act and SEND regulations.
How Ofsted inspects SEND provision
See how Ofsted inspects SEND provision in special schools, and mainstream schools with SEND provision. Find out what inspectors look for, how they gather evidence and how they assess outcomes.
Equality Act 2010
Be clear on your specific duties under the Equality Act 2010, and how it protects people.
Funding for pupils with SEN
Understand how provision for pupils with special educational needs (SEN) is funded in your school.
Staffing ratios
Feel confident you've got the correct ratios in place for your Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) provision, school trips and extended services.
Staffing ratios for trips and visits
Understand how to decide staffing ratios for school trips based on a risk assessment. Find out what you need to consider, including extra needs you must meet for pupils in the EYFS.
EYFS staffing ratio and qualification requirements
Get to grips with the staffing ratio and qualification requirements in early years settings, and download our summary of the rules.
Staffing ratios: special schools
Read the requirements around staffing ratios in special schools. Check out class sizes in area guidelines to give you an idea of how many staff you need per pupil in your school.
Extended services: staffing ratios
The rules for staffing classes also apply for extended provision. Find out the staff you need depending on the age groups of your holiday, after-school and breakfast clubs.
Statutory documents
Use our checklist, template and guidance to make sure you've got all the documents you need.
Statutory policies and documents for schools and trusts
Download our list of the policies and documents you must have, so you're clear on any changes and can make sure you’re compliant.
Register of business and pecuniary interests
Find out about your requirements for publishing a register of business and pecuniary interests on maintained school and academy trust websites. This covers roles such as governors, trustees and members of the trust. See examples of registers.
Attendance register: requirements and guidance
Be clear on the rules for registering pupil attendance and absence, so you can make sure your school is compliant. Find guidance on when to close the register, and see what approaches other schools take.
School admission register: requirements and guidance
All schools need to hold an admission register. Find out what should be in it, how long you should keep records, and when and how to remove a pupil from the school roll.
Single central record: requirements and template
Save time and stay compliant by using our single central record (SCR) template. Find a summary of what must be recorded and which staff the document must cover, in line with Keeping Children Safe in Education guidance.
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