Schools & Academies

We know how schools work.

Our team includes specialists in every aspect of state-funded education, as well as people who have worked in-house for local authorities. We understand the sector, and we know how schools work – whether maintained or academies. This enables us to root all our advice in a practical context.

How we help

We have an enormous amount of experience working with multi-academy providers, converting schools and pupil referral units (PRUs) into academies, creating group structures, and establishing university technical colleges (UTCs).

We have experts on all the subjects you need, whether you’re a maintained school, free school or converter academy. That includes advising on admissions, exclusions, safeguarding, parental complaints, policies and procedures and commercial contracts.

We guide clients through employment contracts, policies and TUPE.  We help you keep public consultations lawful. And we give advice on making sure governors’ and trustees decisions are robust and not vulnerable to challenge.

“Bates Wells have a great awareness of the education sector from early-years through to further education colleges.”

Education Schools, Chambers 2024

“The whole team worked together very well and brought excellent knowledge and insight to the work.”

Education Schools, Chambers 2024
Meet our team
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A new approach to enforcement? Ofqual consults on its Taking Regulatory Action policy

On 20 February 2025, Ofqual opened a consultation on updates to its enforcement policy, “Taking Regulatory Action”, which it proposes to rename “Supporting Compliance and Taking Regulatory Action”. The consultation will close on 15 May 2025. This refresh of Ofqual’s enforcement policy has been long awaited by awarding organisations (“AOs”). Since the existing policy was …
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Richard Jones, a member of our Bates Wells Education team, has been published in the December 2024 issue of Independent Schools Management. Richard’s article, “Effective Land Disposal,” delves into the crucial considerations for independent schools navigating property transactions during mergers, with a particular focus on compliance with the Charities Act. You can find his article …
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