Statutory Policies for Schools: The Complete 2026 Guide for SLT and Governors

Knowing which statutory policies for schools you are legally required to hold is one of the most common compliance headaches for headteachers, business managers and clerks — and one of the first things Ofsted will check. Miss a required policy, let one fall out of date, or fail to publish it where the law says you must, and you create a compliance gap that is entirely avoidable. This 2026 guide explains exactly what statutory policies and documents your school must have, how often each needs reviewing, what you are required to publish online, and where the official list now lives following a major change in 2024.

What are statutory policies and documents?

A statutory policy is one that a school is legally required to have in place. The requirement comes from primary legislation (such as the Education Act 2002 or the Equality Act 2010), from regulations, or from statutory guidance like Keeping Children Safe in Education (KCSIE). Alongside these sit statutory documents — items a school must produce, keep current or publish, such as the register of business interests or the information required on a school website. Together, these statutory policies for schools form the compliance backbone that every setting is judged against.

Two points are worth understanding from the outset. First, schools are not always required to hold a separate document for every requirement — several can be met collectively within one policy unless the guidance states otherwise. Second, while academies and free schools have greater freedoms than local-authority-maintained schools, most statutory requirements apply to them through their funding agreements, so the practical list is very similar. Getting the statutory policies for schools right is therefore a baseline expectation regardless of school type.

Where the statutory policies for schools list now lives (the 2024 change)

This is where many schools — and many out-of-date blogs — go wrong. For years the reference point was the DfE's standalone publication, Statutory Policies for Schools and Academy Trusts. That page was withdrawn in March 2024. The statutory policy list was folded into two new governance guides, which are now the canonical source:

• The Maintained schools governance guide
• The Academy trust governance guide

These were updated on 25 June 2025 and reformatted on 19 November 2025. A practical detail from the change: certain "live" documents — the pupil register, the register of interests, the information required on your website and the Single Central Record — were removed from the formal policy list, but the duty to keep them accurate and up to date remains every bit as binding — so they belong in the same compliance routine as your statutory policies for schools. We come back to that point below, because it is exactly where compliance tends to slip.

The statutory policies for schools you must have

The list below groups the core statutory policies for schools by theme. It reflects the requirements in the current governance guides. It is not an exhaustive list — specialist settings (alternative provision, special schools, sixth forms) and multi-academy trusts carry additional requirements — but it covers the policies that apply to almost every school.

Safeguarding and pupil welfare

• Safeguarding and child protection — required under KCSIE; must be reviewed annually and published on the school website.
• Behaviour policy and written statement of behaviour principles — required under the Education and Inspections Act 2006, covering sanctions, rewards and anti-bullying measures.
• Supporting pupils with medical conditions — setting out how the school meets pupils' medical needs.
• Relationships and sex education (RSE) and health education — required for all state-funded schools.
• School attendance — in line with the statutory guidance on improving attendance.
• Suspensions and permanent exclusions — following the statutory exclusions guidance.

Staff and employment

• Staff code of conduct (staff behaviour policy) — expected via KCSIE.
• Staff discipline, conduct and grievance procedures — including a procedure for dealing with allegations against staff.
• Pay policy — maintained schools must have one in line with the School Teachers' Pay and Conditions Document; reviewed annually.

Equality, inclusion and data

• Equality information and objectives — under the Equality Act 2010 public sector equality duty; objectives must be published at least every four years.
• Accessibility plan — showing how disabled pupils' access to the curriculum will increase over time.
• Special educational needs and disability (SEND) — policy and information report, in line with the SEND code of practice.
• Data protection — with privacy notices for staff, pupils and parents; schools must also register with the ICO and meet UK GDPR requirements.
• Protection of biometric information of children — a more recent addition where biometric systems are used.

Finance, premises and governance

• Charging and remissions — setting out charges for activities and any waivers.
• Complaints procedure — required under section 29 of the Education Act 2002 (and via funding agreement for academies).
• Health and safety — in line with health and safety advice for schools.
• Premises management — covering the school estate and statutory premises duties.
• Governors' allowances — setting out what governors may claim.

Curriculum and careers

• School uniform — an accessible policy in line with the statutory guidance on the cost of school uniforms.
• Careers and provider access (secondary) — a policy statement under section 42B of the Education Act 1997.

Statutory documents you must publish online

Holding your statutory policies for schools is only half the duty — a defined set of documents must also be published on your school website. This is governed by separate DfE guidance for maintained schools and for academies and free schools. Inspectors and the DfE check websites directly, and missing items are flagged specifically. The core list includes:

• Contact details, including the name of the SENCO
• Admission arrangements
• Your most recent Ofsted report
• Exam and assessment (performance) results
• Curriculum information, including a music development plan in primary settings
• Behaviour policy, complaints procedure, and charging and remissions policy
• SEN information report and accessibility plan
• Equality objectives and public sector equality duty information
• Pupil premium strategy statement (by 31 December each year) and, in primary schools, the PE and sport premium (by 31 July)
• Governance information, including the register of interests
• Financial information and a link to the schools financial benchmarking service
• Gender pay gap information (schools with 250 or more employees)
• School uniform policy and school opening hours
• Careers programme information (secondary schools)

If your school does not have its own website, you must still publish this information on an alternative site and give parents a link — and provide a free paper copy on request.

How often must statutory policies for schools be reviewed?

Keeping statutory policies for schools under review is where well-run schools still get caught out. The DfE's position is straightforward: where a specific frequency is not set, governing bodies are strongly advised to review the policy annually. A few key exceptions and confirmations:

Not all of these statutory policies for schools need full governing body sign-off — the governance guides set out the level of approval required for each, and much can be delegated to a committee, an individual governor or the headteacher. The accountability, however, always sits with the governing body.

'Live' documents: the Single Central Record and beyond

As noted earlier, the 2024 change removed certain documents from the statutory policy list — but only because they are live records that must be kept accurate continuously, rather than reviewed on a fixed cycle. The most important of these is the Single Central Record (SCR), the mandatory log of pre-employment safeguarding checks required under KCSIE.

The SCR pulls together the very checks that underpin safer recruitment — including QTS verification, Section 128 checks, prohibition checks, enhanced DBS with barred list, and right to work. A statutory policy that says all the right things means little if the SCR behind it has gaps. Treating your statutory policies for schools and your live safeguarding records as one connected system — rather than separate jobs — is what keeps a school genuinely inspection-ready.

Common mistakes with statutory policies for schools

Even diligent schools trip up on statutory policies for schools in a handful of predictable ways:

• Citing the withdrawn DfE page — working from the old standalone publication rather than the current governance guides.
• Out-of-date review dates — a policy that is technically present but was last reviewed three years ago is still a finding.
• Held but not published — having a compliant policy that never made it onto the website where the law requires it.
• No record of staff acknowledgement — no evidence that staff have actually read key policies such as safeguarding and the code of conduct.
• Version confusion — multiple copies of the same policy in different drives, with no single source of truth.
• Treating the SCR as separate — managing policies in one place and safeguarding records in another, so gaps in either go unnoticed until inspection.

How OnlineSCR helps you manage statutory policies for schools

OnlineSCR is best known for making the Single Central Record simple, but the same platform includes a dedicated Statutory Policies and Documents area — so your policies and your safeguarding records live in one place, not scattered across shared drives. With OnlineSCR you can store every statutory policy with its review date, get clear visibility of what is due, upload and version documents so there is a single source of truth, and track which staff have read and acknowledged key policies. When an inspector asks, everything is in one screen.

And because OnlineSCR is backed by free telephone support and free ongoing training, you always have a real person to ask — whether the question is about statutory policies for schools, a review cycle, or a missing check on the SCR.

This article is intended as general guidance and is correct to the best of our knowledge at the time of writing. Statutory requirements change — always check the current DfE governance guides for your school type before acting. It is not legal advice.

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