Oak National Academy has revealed that the Department for Education has agreed that its lessons will remain free to use as part of any long-term deal over its future operation.

Principal Matt Hood used an exclusive Tes interview to outline the consensus over this “really important” aspect of the virtual academy’s current offer.

He said the DfE was backing Oak resources remaining free to use for both teachers in schools and pupils and families at home. 

The news comes on the day that it has been confirmed that the national online school - launched during the pandemic - is holding conversations with the DfE over its long-term ownership.

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As Tes revealed earlier this month, Oak is set to receive public funding for an additional two terms, with an option under discussion to turn it into a government arm’s length body from Easter.

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Back then it was understood that the academy “hoped” to remain free. Mr Hood has now told Tes he has the DfE’s backing on that point.

Oak also confirmed today that it would receive a further £2.1 million to fund it to “stay open” until the end of the spring term to “support Covid-19 resilience and teacher workload”, and that it would continue to be hosted by the Reach Foundation, which has “incubated” Oak since its launch in April 2020.

Under the terms of the funding, Oak said in a statement that its “overall annualised budget will be reduced by around 50 per cent, with a staff team equivalent to that of a primary school”, and that it “will provide a national back-up and effective insurance for all the country’s schools at the equivalent cost of £80 per school”.

Asked if there was anything he would not countenance in a deal with the DfE, Mr Hood told Tes: “I do my best to try and not pre-empt and draw red lines before you’ve got into conversations. So non-negotiables I think is quite an unhelpful starting point for open discussions with people.”

However, he said that there are some principles, including maintaining the online school’s independence over its curriculum, that are “really important” to both Oak and the DfE.

“Everybody agrees that if this isn’t by teachers, for teachers, if this isn’t independent in a curricular sense from government, that’s a problem,” he said.

“Everybody agrees that the resources should be free at the point of use for the users, be that pupils and their families using them at home, or teachers with their pupils using them in a school context. So it is principles like that that are important.”

Mr Hood indicated that officials were looking across national government for examples of how Oak could be run and funded in future, including organisations currently within the DfE’s remit [such as the exams watchdog Ofqual], and those which have “nothing to do with education”.

However, he said the jury was still out on what form Oak’s relationship with the DfE might take, with potential governance structures plotted along “sliding scales”, ranging from “much closer to the department” to a more independent organisation.

Mr Hood also stressed that Oak had so far enjoyed the freedom to be “nimble and responsive” as a tech company, and that he would like to see that culture protected.

“We are, yes, an educational organisation, but we’re an education technology organisation, and there are particular ways in which we’ve been able to operate that has allowed us to be nimble and responsive, and the culture of the organisation, the team, the ways in which we work is also something that I want to have conversations about,” he said. 

“Again, there’ll be rules and accountabilities and processes that are necessary, but we’ve got to try and figure out what those look like.”

He added: “I mean, I’m sure I could come up with some non-negotiables, you know, I’m not going to be happy for you to do a whole load of absurd things.

“But when it comes to starting these conversations, I think let’s start with some principles, let’s see where we get with those principles and in these initial conversations of ‘where would we start this work from?’. 

“The last thing the department want to do is put the success that this broad partnership has had over the past year at risk - that would be daft. They recognise that as much as anybody.”

Mr Hood said the process now will involve looking at “as many of these different bodies and examples and organisations as we possibly can and see if we can find one...or a few that give us the different ingredients we need to come up with something that allows Oak to be sustainable in the future”.

He said “different types of funding models” would be considered. “The department funds things in a whole range of different ways,” he said.

“There are literally hundreds of examples that we could look at that sit along these spectrums of options. As we work up some more, we’ll continue to be transparent, and if we get to one that we think is viable...we’ve got to do all that consultation with our curriculum partners and others and then start to narrow it down from there.”

He added: “There are obviously lots of other examples out there...you’ve named some [eg, Ofqual] - those are the sorts of organisations we’re looking at, but there are a relatively limited number that sit with the Department for Education as their sponsoring body and we want to make sure we look right across government at different organisations even if they’ve got nothing to do with education. They might have structures and approaches that are useful for us.”

Ed Vainker, CEO of the Reach Foundation, which has been asked by the DfE to “consult with its stakeholders and partners” about DfE ownership of Oak, said: “As the incubators and custodians of Oak, we have been considering a range of options so it can continue to support teachers and pupils for the long term.

“As part of this process, we’ve been asked to consult on transferring the ownership of Oak’s brand, platform and intellectual property to the Department. Oak and the Department want to maintain Oak’s principle of curriculum independence, being ‘of the sector, for the sector’, and that its resources remain entirely optional.

“We are consulting the schools and organisations involved in helping make it a success, to find the right sustainable future.”