How schools can open up their facilities to community use.
Use our School is a free resource that supports schools to open their facilities to the community during evenings, weekends and holiday periods.
Schools can use this resource to find information, templates and case studies to help open their facilities in an inclusive, accessible and sustainable way.
In England, 71% of indoor sports halls are owned by educational establishments.
However, access to these facilities after 3pm and at weekends for community use is often limited and ad-hoc.
In 2019-20, the Department for Education invested £1.5m into exploring the motivations and barriers schools experience when opening their doors for community use.
The primary driver for both primary and secondary schools was to establish themselves as the hub of the local community by offering a safe, trusted and accessible space for people of all ages to be active during evenings, weekends and holiday periods.
Historically, opening school estates for community use has been viewed through the lens of income generation however the project in 2019-20 highlighted that this was often a secondary driver for schools.
Building a strong and varied community offer on a school site can take time, but Use Our School and local partners such as Active Partnerships and local authorities are there to help you every step of the way.
Building a strong, needs-led and sustainable community offer on a school site can take time but when done right, the school becomes a vibrant hub for the pupils and the local community during evenings, weekends and holiday periods.
You may find it useful to reach out to your local Active Partnership, local authority, national governing bodies, local clubs and community groups as you begin to develop your community offer.
Whether your school is already open for community use or embarking on this journey for the first time, we would encourage you to consider the checklist below.
Read moreIt can take time to build a strong and sustainable community offer on a school site. Starting small with a few community bookings to test policies, procedures and staffing can be helpful. There are also a range of organisations that can offer help, expertise and save you time and effort along the way.
There are 42 Active Partnerships covering England who work collaboratively with local partners to help create the conditions for an active nation.
Active Partnerships have an in-depth understanding of the needs of the local community and work across all sports, activities, providers and audiences and have a specific focus on supporting inactive people and under-represented groups who will benefit the most from an active lifestyle.
Read moreActive Partnerships can help schools to start or develop their community offer in a number of ways, including:
You can find out more about Active Partnerships on their website.
Local authorities often have a range of departments that can provide specialist advice. These can include the sports development, leisure, community, health and wellbeing teams and children’s services.
Read moreYour local authority can help you in a number of ways, including:
In total, 49 national governing bodies of sport (NGBs) received funding from us in 2017-21.
NGBs often have a team of experts to help grow their sport at a national, regional and local level.
Read moreEach NGB has their own network of accredited clubs who are often on the lookout for indoor and outdoor facilities to train and play matches at and a school could make an ideal home.
There may already be a local club in your area that is looking for a new home. Before reaching out to any NGBs, start by building a better understanding of what activities and sports your pupils and the local community would like to do. Your local Active Partnership can help you with some community and pupil consultation and then help connect you with the relevant NGBs and local clubs.
When beginning a new relationship with an NGB or local club, consider how the arrangement could be mutually beneficial both within and outside of the school day. As an example, a club coach could deliver an after-school session which then helps transition pupils into the community club.
Other schools that have, or are in the process of, delivering community use at their schools will often be willing to share advice on operating models, pricing policies and management processes.
Knowing this can save you time and effort when implementing processes back at your school and help you to avoid any pitfalls.
Read moreSome of the ways in which schools might help each other include:
Schools, especially those embarking on opening their facilities for the first time or who are considering a third-party management model may find it useful to work with companies/trusts who have experience of community programming and lettings.
Read moreA school should be clear about what their aspirations are around community provision, the facilities and activities they want to offer and should ideally carry out an options appraisal on operating models before committing to a third-party management company.
Speak to local schools who already have a community offer or your local Active Partnership to find out more about operators already working in your area.
There are a variety of operating model options to help a school run a successful community programme on a school site. Most operating models can be split into either in-house management or those which involve third-party management.
There is no right or wrong operating model as different models work for different schools. Your school needs to be clear on its vision for community use and what existing assets are already in place e.g. staffing, booking systems, experience in community lettings.
Some schools find it easier to manage community use in-house whereas others need to explore third-party management options as they don’t have the capacity in-house or they want to separate the community use from the day-to-day running of their school.
This model means your school and governing body or trust would be responsible for:
For in-house management models to work effectively, a school needs to dedicate some capacity internally. This could be a business manager, caretaker or teacher or in some cases, a school has developed a strong and sustainable community programme by appointing a community sports manager.
A school adopting an in-house management model would also need to consider how it fits into their existing own governance structure.
Adopting a third-party operating model will mean governors and trustees continue to be responsible for community use overall, but the daily management and administration is outsourced to a third-party. The number of different third-party organisations is plentiful both nationally and locally.
This model usually works in the following way:
In-house and third-party operating models are the most common. However, there are a few other models that schools could consider:
A collective of schools may see the benefit of coming together to manage their community offer. This could involve sharing the cost of a community sport manager to work across multiple sites or a business manager working across a number of schools in a trust or local area.
Some schools have built a strong and trusting relationship with a local sports club who is responsible for opening and closing the facility during evenings and weekends.
A number of clubs and NGBs have worked with schools to set up a keypad system whereby users are key holders for just the sports facilities they are hiring rather than having access to the whole school site. This can help to reduce staffing and utility costs and can help improve the security of the school during community use.
A school may find it useful to operate a hybrid approach to their community programme. A school may have the staffing to manage community bookings in the week but may look to appoint a third-party supplier for weekends and holiday periods.
In 2020, Knight Kavanagh & Page (KKP) carried out an options appraisal of in-house and third-party operating models which you may find useful to consider when reviewing operational models most suitable for your school’s circumstances.
Overall, a school needs to be clear on their vision for opening their facilities for community use and explore all available options. A school may wish to speak with their local Active Partnership or local authority or a local school to get some advice and support with deciding the most effective operating model.
Schools need to identify someone to take responsibility for community use at an operational level.
However, it's vital that every school’s governing body or trust fully understand the risks and responsibilities relating to community use. This includes checking that the correct procedures, contracts, agreements and policies are in place to ensure community use is delivered safely and effectively.
It’s often worthwhile to identify a 'community use champion' who holds a senior leadership position within the school. Their role is to consider how community use supports and enhances the school's vision, mission and core business.
Providing community access to your school does pose some risks, but if planned for and managed, these risks on balance can far be outweighed by opportunities.
Having a risk management plan is an important part of successfully running and maintaining access to your school’s facilities.
It’s advisable to carry out your risk management plan as early as possible with a range of different people and partners who have the knowledge of your school, community and facilities. This would include consulting your insurance provider at this early stage.
Some of the benefits of thinking about risk early and planning for it are:
A lettings policy sets out expectations of your service and requirements of your community users. It is a very valuable document to keep everyone safe and to avoid disputes.
Read moreA lettings policy will usually include:
Sometimes schools include this information within their booking forms or a tenancy agreement. It doesn’t matter what terminology you use, as long as you cover the key terms and conditions.
If your school is developing a long-term, mutually beneficial relationship with a sports club, it will be valuable to formalise this partnership arrangement in an agreement.
Read moreThe type of information that a key user agreement or SLA might include:
A community use agreement (CUA) is a detailed document which is generally used when you have an arrangement with different parties regarding the delivery, management and/or funding of community use.
It'll set out how you intend to operate, including hours of availability, management arrangements, pricing policy etc.
Creating a CUA is good practice and helps all partners understand your priorities, targets and circumstances.
Read moreConsiderations include:
We're a statutory consultee on all planning applications for development affecting playing field land and there may be instances where we'll require a CUA to be submitted, approved and implemented in order to overcome its potential objection to a planning application.
Typically, a CUA will include:
There are two situations when a transfer of control agreement may be required:
Read moreIt's important to note that you'll also be required to honour any conditions relating to a funding agreement (for example National Lottery funding for a sports facility which has community participation conditions).
Income generation is the secondary driver for many schools but opening for community use still needs to be cost neutral to the school.
For some schools, the aspiration is to build a strong and profitable community offer and they may choose to invest in the staffing and infrastructure needed to support this.
Whatever management model a school decides to choose for their community use, it’s important that they are aware of their potential income and likely expenditure.
Schools should create a business plan that includes an appropriate pricing policy for community use.
Once established, it’s possible for a school to generate income over and above running costs, which can then be used to renew and develop their community sports provision and facilities further.
Opening school facilities for community use can lead to an increase in costs in a number of areas:
Read moreA key success factor in building a strong and sustainable community offer is where a school has dedicated internal or external capacity. Costs include wages, national insurance contributions, uniforms, training, recruitment. The scale of these costs depends on the size and scale of the community programme. To help reduce staffing costs, schools can jointly appoint community managers or administration support to manage the community offer.
Costs could include stationery and printing, website hosting, telephones and insurance. Dedicating appropriate financial resource to marketing the school’s facilities is critical to help raise awareness of available facilities to pupils, clubs and communities.
Heating (including hot showers), lighting (including floodlights for all weather pitches), rates, water and sewerage costs could all increase if you open your school’s facilities to community use. A key consideration to help keep costs down when starting or building the community offer is to consider if the heating and lighting could be zoned in a school to save heating or lighting the full site.
The school will be responsible for short-term repairs and maintenance such as replacing light bulbs to long-term replacements such as an all-weather pitch surface. It’s also important to consider how opening your school’s facilities to the community could impact your catering and cleaning contracts. A school’s pricing policies should help to cover these costs.
It’s advisable to set aside some of your revenue to fund any future capital expense - this is known as a sinking fund.
Read moreTypically, the fund will be used for any long-term maintenance and replacement/refurbishment costs such as:
Community use will increase your footfall and usage and will therefore contribute towards an increase in your maintenance requirements, so it’s important to factor this additional expense into your budget.
You’ll also need to consider the VAT implications of community use. This will depend on the type of school you are, but it can be possible to avoid significant VAT costs.
To ensure you income is enough to offset all of your additional costs, you’ll need to think carefully about your pricing policy.
Read moreA useful starting point will be to carry out a benchmarking exercise of other local provision and their rates of hire for similar facilities.
Many schools have two or three different levels of charges to their policy which are appropriate to the different sets of users, such as private companies or community groups.
Some schools find it beneficial to develop longer-term agreements with a local sports club that proves beneficial to both parties.
Block bookings provide a guaranteed income for schools and provides the opportunity for schools to pass on a discount to the club to fulfil the school’s ambition to be a community hub.
It's important to consider the costs and repairs mentioned above when determining your pricing policy.
Please visit our funding page as there may be some funding programmes that schools are eligible to apply for. To be successful, you'll need to demonstrate how your project can help deliver one or more of our strategic outcomes.
Marketing has an important role to play in ensuring a school has a strong and sustainable community offer. Schools need to consider how they will advertise their available facilities to pupils, clubs and the local community – such as through websites, social media and leaflet drops.
When starting or developing your community offer, we would encourage schools to consider the following:
We've produced a free Sports Market Segmentation Tool that enables you to identify what 'segments' are dominant in your community, what sporting activities they favour and the best way to communicate with them to market your programmes. This may help you tailor the marketing of your school facilities to the audiences you want to reach.
Your school will have several responsibilities in relation to community use to ensure the safety of students, staff and community users. This can be covered by a comprehensive lettings policy.
In most cases, it'll simply be about extending your current school safety practices to cover community activity, although the exact nature of your responsibilities may depend on which operating model your school is using.
Health and safety should be a consideration in the early stages of planning for community use on your site. It’s important you ensure your health and safety policy is up to date and made available to all groups, and key contacts. Fire evacuation and other safety procedures should be included within the induction process for all new community groups and practiced on a regular basis.
Risk assessments should be carried out by all groups using your facilities, however, if it's an event that you're organising (such as a competition) or a 'pay and play' activity, then it is the school's responsibility.
We recommend you introduce a quality assurance process when allowing groups to use your site to minimise any risks – the Child Protection in Sport Unit and the Ann Craft Trust has developed a check and challenge tool to support you in this process.
The general public will see a school site as a safe environment, but schools should consider the implications if a child protection issue arose on their site outside of the school’s core hours.
Schools need to ensure there are safeguarding procedures in place including safer recruitment and reporting procedures for all community facility operating models. The school governing body should agree any policy and procedures and ensure there are appropriate checks made on any external providers/clubs/hirers in terms of their safeguarding policies, procedures and practice.
The coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic has brought many changes, challenges and restrictions and it's imperative that as a venue provider that in addition to the above, you also follow the appropriate and most up to date government and local authority guidance and protocol.
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