Over 70% of the families we help are now looking to find places in state schools rather than independent or international schools.

One of the main reasons for this has been the success of UK state school academy programme – one of the very few successful cross-party policy initiatives across all areas of government.  Introduced by Tony Blair, and backed by both the Coalition and Conservative administrations, academy status allowed schools autonomy and freedom to drive up standards.

The vas majority of secondary schools have academy status, and nearly half of primary and SEN schools.   Academies include other types of school, including Free schools.

The academy programme is broadly seen as having driven up the standards in English education, and having improved the quality of provision to many disadvantaged children.

Of most interest to relocating families, however, has been the greater autonomy in setting admissions policies.  These freedoms have been helpful for many of our clients offering a more enlightened, less bureaucratic, approach to timings of applications, residency requirements and year group of entry.

The UK government is intending to bring a range of reforms to level up (or down, depending on your viewpoint) the position of academies within the English state education system.

The reforms will look to limit some of this autonomy – with one major area being local authorities regaining more control over school admissions.

Other factors will include new restrictions on teacher pay, stricter rules on training and enforcing academies to follow the standard National Curriculum (itself under review).