In England and Wales, a foundation school is a state-funded school in which the governing body has greater freedom in the running of the school than in community schools.

Foundation schools were set up under the School Standards and Framework Act 1998 to replace grant-maintained schools, which were funded directly by central government. Grant-maintained schools that had previously been voluntary controlled (but not voluntary aided) usually became foundation schools.

Due to the size of the lists containing contact details for the schools in England they are embedded as Google Spreadsheets. These are downloadable from the original file and can be searched using ctrl+f (cmd+f on a Mac).

For ease of use, and so mistakes are not made when sending FOI requests, these contact details also include the locations of the schools.

It is advised when sending a Freedom of Information request to any of the schools listed to include in your email that you are making a request under the act, this makes it clear to the authority who may not receive many requests.

Link to the Google Spreadsheet.

I am a journalist and author. I am a journalist at the UK edition of WIRED magazine. In 2015, my first book Freedom of Information: A Practical Guide for UK Journalists, was published. My second book Reed Hastings: Building Netflix, was published in March 2020. I created FOI Directory in 2012 and have maintained it in my spare time ever since.