The archdiocese owns the land from which almost all archdiocesan Catholic schools operate. Academies have Church Supplemental Agreements which governs their use of the school site. Voluntary Aided (VA) schools have no documentation formalising their relationship with the archdiocese.
Whether the school is an academy school or voluntary aided, they are both permitted by the archdiocese to operate a Catholic school from the site.
This level of permission is a bare licence, which means that the school cannot grant rights over the school site to anyone else. Such rights can only be granted by the archdiocese.
Trustees of the archdiocese have now approved a scheme whereby CMAT directors and VA school governors are authorised to enter hiring agreements on behalf of the archdiocese, so long as the precedent document below is used.
These are for one off or weekly arrangements. You do not need to notify us if you use these documents, just keep a record yourselves.
For occupiers such as before and after school clubs, a licence to occupy will normally be needed. Please contact the archdiocesan solicitor who can provide you with a licence for this. The licence must be in the format approved by the archdiocese and supervised by the archdiocesan solicitor.
Occasionally other people approach schools in relation to the use of the school site, for example, utilities firms who may want to put a wire or cable over or under the site, or a neighbour wants a right of way, or to use a piece of land for storage. Whenever a third party wants to do something with a school site other than entering into a hiring agreement, please contact your Diocesan Schools Officer in the first instance for help. Do not enter agreements of this nature without coming to the archdiocese.
