Features of an Academy
Academies are established in a way that is intended to be 'creative' and 'innovative' to give them the freedoms considered necessary to deal with the long term issues they are intended to solve. Each Academy has a private sponsor who can be an individual (such as Sir David Garrard, who sponsors Bexley City Academy) or an organisation, such as the United Learning Trust or Amey PLC. They are intended to bring 'qualities of success' to the school, again to help it change the long-term trend of failure of the school the Academy replaces. Academies that have already demonstrated stong success are the City Academy, Bristol and Mossbourne Academy in Hackney.

In return for an investment of 10% of the Academy's capital costs (or £2m, whichever is less), the sponsor is able to input into the process of establishing the school including its curriculum, ethos, specialism and building (if a new one is being built), and the power to appoint governors to the Academy's governing body.

Academies typically replace an existing (predecessor) school, although some are newly established. The remainder of the capital and running costs are met by the state in the usual way for UK state schools through LA funded grants. Academies can select up to 10% of pupils by aptitude in a way similar to Specialist Schools (although very few of them exercise this ability). Although they are independent they have to have regard to the same code of practice of admission as maintained schools, and so cannot select beyond the 10% aptitude rule. Academies are not bound to follow the National Curriculum (another freedom to innovate), although they still participate in the Key Stage 3 and GCSE exams as other English schools (which effectively means they teach a curriculum very similar to maintained schools, with small variations).

In terms of their governance, Academies are established as companies limited by guarantee with a Governing Body that acts as a Trust, the governors also acts as the Trust's Board of Directors (they are legally accountable for the operation of the Academy, but not financially so). The Trust serves as the legal entity which the school element is part of and the Governing Body is the group that actually oversees the running of the school (although the day to day management of the school is, as in most schools, conducted by the principal and their senior management team).