Academies: making significant changes or closure by agreement
Guidance for academy trusts planning to make organisational changes or close an academy by mutual agreement with the Secretary of State.
Applies to England
Documents
Details
Academy trusts must use the tier 1 or tier 3 application forms to apply for a significant change. From 1 May 2024, applications submitted using the previous ‘full business case application form’ and ‘fast track application form’ will no longer be processed.
The guidance on making significant changes to an open academy is for academy trusts wishing to make organisational changes to a school. Those include:
- physical expansion
- merging with another academy
- changing the school’s age range
- changing the school’s faith designation
The guidance sets out the significant change process and explains which application form to complete. It also sets out pupil place planning roles and a framework for collaborative school place planning. This is useful for:
- local authorities
- academies
- schools
- school governors
- trustees
- dioceses
The guidance on closure of an academy by mutual agreement explains when closure might be an appropriate solution to address standards or viability issues. It:
- sets out the process for closing an academy by mutual agreement with the Secretary of State
- provides guidance about when academy trusts should talk to other parties
Updates to this page
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Updated 'Making significant changes to an academy' to clarify Diocesan Board of Education involvement in the significant change process. Also updated the types of SEN provision listed.
Update history
2026-02-12 10:00
Updated ‘Making significant changes to an academy’ to remove the requirement for academy trusts to apply for a significant change to add or expand a nursery and added changing a studio school to a university technical college (UTC) as a tier 3 change. Clarification provided for sixth form closures, Ofsted inspections and satellite site proposals. Updated tier 3 application form and linked to the tier 1 application form, which is published in a new format.
2025-08-11 15:59
Updated ‘Making significant changes to an academy’ to clarify Diocesan Board of Education involvement in the significant change process. Also updated the types of SEN provision listed.
2024-11-14 09:07
Tier 3 application form updated to fix accessibility issue.
2024-10-17 11:00
Updated ‘Making significant changes to an academy’ guidance and ‘Significant changes: tier 1 application form’ to reflect the new combined application process for academies proposing to add or expand a school-based nursery and apply for the school-based nursery capital grant.
2024-10-02 12:00
Updated guidance and forms to reflect Ofsted’s removal of single word judgements.
2024-05-09 14:43
Updated to reflect that from 1 May 2024, applications submitted using the previous ‘full business case application form’ and ‘fast track application form’ will no longer be processed and tier 1 and tier 3 application forms should be used.
2024-04-22 10:00
Updated the ‘Making significant changes to an academy’ guidance. The guidance clarifies what information will be considered by the department in tier 1 applications and states the existing position on mainstream to special academy conversions. New significant change application forms have been added.
2024-03-25 09:30
Updated to show that the 2024 version of the ‘Making significant changes to an open academy’ guidance will come into force from 22 April 2024.
2024-02-13 10:00
Added new ‘Making significant changes to an academy’ guidance, applicable from April 2024.
2023-01-30 15:00
Updated ‘Closure of an academy by mutual agreement’ to remove outdated references and expand guidance on the closure of special educational provision.