The Harris Federation is responsible for the education of one in 40 of school children in London.

With the majority of our academies located in areas of high socioeconomic disadvantage, a high quality education is key to the futures of the pupils we serve. 

We are a Federation rather than a chain and the autonomy of our Principals and governing bodies is at the heart of our success. But our vision, from the start, has been to provide the structure and services needed for our schools to amount to more than the sum of their parts, and to free-up our teachers and leaders to focus on one thing and one thing only: the outstanding education of all their pupils. 

From our HQ in East Croydon, we have expert, hands-on teams in finance, estates, IT, HR and recruitment, legal, marketing and, most importantly, educational improvement services.  Our central team includes around 60 highly skilled teachers, available to our academies as a resource to use as they need.  

Harris academies are funded on the same basis as other state schools in England, but by negotiating shared contracts and services and delivering other economies of scale our academies currently save £5 million per year, all of which goes back into the education of pupils.

Related Links & Articles

Article in Primary School Management magazine about the Harris Federation’s support of its schools during the COVID-19 pandemic Harris Federation Senior Executive Principal & CEO writes for the TES on the autonomy of Harris Principals Harris Federation’s Modern Foreign Languages lead is interviewed by the TES about how we have transformed the uptake of languages by our pupils