grant-maintained school

A school, established by the 1988 Education Act, which is independent of the local education authority and receives its annual grant directly from the government. In order to ‘opt out’ of local authority control a majority of parents must vote in favour by secret ballot.

In England and Wales, a grant-maintained school is a state school that opted out under local control as allowed for by the provisions of the Education Reform Act 1988.

Grant-maintained schools (usually known as GM schools) received their funding direct from central government in the form of a grant, and were managed by their own boards of governors.

In 1996 there were 1,090 grant-maintained schools, of which 60% were secondary schools.

Grant-maintained schools were controversial, in part because of the additional funding and also because GM schools were allowed to set their own admissions criteria, which were sometimes at variance with those applied by the local authority.

Grant-maintained schools were abolished under the School Standards and Framework Act 1998. GM schools could chose to become foundation schools, or to rejoin the local education authority as maintained community schools.