Map of local school collaborations

The Centre for Education and Youth is creating England’s first-ever visual interactive map to show how schools collaborate with each other, and how each local authority in the country supports school improvement. As well as being practically useful to school leaders and others, we hope the data contributes to a national conversation about place-based education and levelling up. This builds on our Phase 1 report concerning Area-Based Education Partnerships (ABEPs).

The map allows users to see:
– the different forms of school collaboration occurring at the local authority level
– the role that local authorities play in driving school improvement

We have used a combination of websites, reports, and other resources to understand what is happening in all English local authorities. We know that these sources may not always give a complete and accurate picture of what is going on in local authorities. As part of this process, we have therefore made efforts to contact all local authorities, to verify the information in the summaries and request corrections and additional information, where needed.

In the current schools landscape, a significant amount of school improvement and collaborative work happens across Multi Academy Trusts and federations. In this mapping exercise, we have focused on less formal collaborative arrangements, which have tended to receive less attention. We also wanted to capture the different school improvement functions that local authorities have retained. Our research has not yet enabled us to explore how MATs are supporting improvement and collaborations beyond the schools in its MAT, whether through partnerships with other MATs or direct relationships with other LA-maintained schools. We may include such information in future iterations of the map.

This map is a work in progress and we would appreciate your help to ensure it as useful and accurate as possible. If you are a member of a local authority, an Area-Based Education Partnership (ABEP) or other form of school collaboration and have information that you would like to share with the team, please get in touch through this form.

In addition, feel free to use the form to share any issues you spot or any ways in which you think the map could be improved. For instance, we have not included a list of MATs present in each local authority but may look to include this in future iterations.

We would like to thank all the local authorities, ABEPs and others who have given their time to share the work they are doing to support young people in their communities.

Click on the image below to access a full, interactive version of the map. For the best user experience, please use a large monitor.