Support and intervention in schools
Statutory guidance on the responsibilities of local authorities'authorities and regional directors'directors responsibilities relating to schools and PRUspupil whichreferral units that require support or intervention.
- From:
- Department for Education
- Published
- 2 May 2014
- Last updated
-
19NovemberSeptember20242025 — See all updates
Applies to England
Documents
Support and intervention in schools guidance
PDF, 360373 KB, 48 pages
Details
This guidance describes how:
- local authorities and regional directors will intervene in underperforming local-authority-maintained schools
- regional directors will intervene in underperforming academies
- regional directors will intervene in pupil referral units (PRUs) judged inadequate by Ofsted
PRUs are places that provide education for children who can’tcannot go to a mainstream school.
If you’reyou are a local authority you:
- must follow this statutory guidance by law
- should use this guidance in conjunction with the interim executive board application form
You should also be aware of how this guidance affects your school if you’reyou are part of a:
- diocese
- school foundation
- governing body of maintained schools
- academy trust
Statutory guidance sets out what schools and local authorities must do to comply with the law. You should follow the guidance unless you have a very good reason not to.
Details
This guidance describes how:
- local authorities and regional directors will intervene in underperforming local-authority-maintained schools
- regional directors will intervene in underperforming academies
- regional directors will intervene in pupil referral units (PRUs) judged inadequate by Ofsted
PRUs are places that provide education for children who can’tcannot go to a mainstream school.
If you’reyou are a local authority you:
- must follow this statutory guidance by law
- should use this guidance in conjunction with the interim executive board application form
You should also be aware of how this guidance affects your school if you’reyou are part of a:
- diocese
- school foundation
- governing body of maintained schools
- academy trust
Statutory guidance sets out what schools and local authorities must do to comply with the law. You should follow the guidance unless you have a very good reason not to.
Updates to this page
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Update history
2026-09-07 12:20
Updated ‘Support and intervention in schools’.
2025-11-17 09:30
The statutory guidance has been updated following the school accountability reform consultation. The changes reflect amendments to the Coasting Schools (England) Regulations and introduce revised policies for ‘stuck’ schools and academies identified as being in special measures or requiring significant improvement.
2025-09-09 10:02
Updated guidance to provide information about regional improvement in standards and excellence (RISE) teams. This includes the universal service and targeted intervention, how the Department for Education will mandate RISE interventions, where necessary, and the policy on ‘stuck’ schools, as defined in the Coasting Schools (England) Regulations 2022.
2024-11-01 09:30
Updated the title from ‘Schools causing concern’ to ‘Support and intervention in schools’, updated ‘Support and intervention in schools guidance’.
2024-01-09 10:51
‘Schools causing concern guidance’ has been updated to give greater clarity and accuracy. The policy has not changed.
2023-07-10 09:30
The guidance has been updated to reflect changes to Ofsted’s inspection process in relation to a school judged inadequate solely due to ineffective safeguarding. Changes have also been made to bring text on trust-level intervention (formerly financial intervention in academies) into line with the updated academy trust handbook.
2022-10-07 15:21
‘Schools causing concern guidance’ has been updated to give greater clarity on the operational process the department will follow in relation to the ‘schools not making the necessary improvements’ measure.
2022-09-01 09:30
Replaced 2 documents with updated guidance (from 1 September 2022).
2022-06-30 10:00
Added the document ‘Schools causing concern: guidance for local authorities and regional directors (from 1 September 2022)’. Changed the name of the existing guidance to include the date it was issued (March 2022).
2022-03-28 10:32
Updated guidance to reflect changes to the School Improvement Monitoring and Brokering grant and who can request that a schools academy order is revoked when a school is due to close.