“No representations have been made,” the order says in dry official prose, but the effect on the ground is simple enough. A statutory instrument published on legislation.gov.uk, made on 15 October and in force from Friday 16 October 2026, resets how the old teacher’s house endowment linked to Hathern Church of England Primary School can now be used. (legislation.gov.uk) For Hathern, this is less about a fresh cash boost than about who holds the fund, who can spend it and where the benefit is meant to land. The Department for Education has turned a historical asset into two live funds: one for church-school purposes across the Diocese of Leicester and one kept nearer home for parish religious education. (legislation.gov.uk)

The money traces back to an 1849 deed made between Charles March Phillipps and the minister and churchwardens of Hathern. According to the order, the endowment had been tied to religious education at a voluntary Church of England school, but the premises connected to that arrangement had ceased to be used for that purpose. (onewe.uk) What remains is the value of the former teacher’s house after sale: £70,300 held on deposit by the Leicester Diocesan Board of Education, plus any income arising from it. That detail matters because the order is not conjuring up a new grant; it is deciding the future of money already sitting within the system. (onewe.uk)

The trust assets must now be divided on an old church-school formula. Eleven fourteenths goes into a new School Fund and three fourteenths into a separate Religious Education Fund. Before administration costs and any accrued income are taken into account, that works out at roughly £55,236 for the school side and about £15,064 for the parish religious education side. (onewe.uk) That three-fourteenths share is not just a random fraction pulled from a legal drawer. Church of England parish guidance says the familiar split comes from the old arrangement under which school premises were also used for Sunday teaching, so a local religious education portion was preserved when the main school use fell away. (churchofengland.org)

Under the order, the Leicester Diocesan Board of Education becomes trustee of the foundation itself, the trust assets and the new School Fund. The minister and churchwardens of Hathern, by contrast, are made trustees of the separate Religious Education Fund. (onewe.uk) That parish fund is tightly drawn. Its income must be used, and its capital may be used, for educational purposes related to Hathern and tied to Church of England religious education, whether through a Sunday School or another suitable route. In plain terms, a slice of the old asset stays anchored to the parish rather than disappearing entirely into a larger diocesan account. (onewe.uk)

The larger share, though, moves into the wider diocesan school structure. The School Fund is to be consolidated with the Leicester Diocesan Uniform Statutory Trusts Fund, meaning most of the money will sit inside a broader framework serving Church of England schools across the Diocese of Leicester. (legislation.gov.uk) The schedule attached to the order sets out familiar uniform statutory trusts. In practice, that means money can be used for sites, buildings, enlargement and maintenance at relevant church schools, and for teacher’s houses linked to those schools, with income also available for advice, resources, inspection services and staffing tied to that work. (onewe.uk)

This is the kind of legal housekeeping that rarely gets a village hall talking, and in this case it drew no objections: the order says no representations were made after notice of the proposal was given. Still, for school governors, clergy and parish trustees, these orders matter because they decide whether historic local assets sit idle, stay hyper-local or are repurposed for a wider educational job. (onewe.uk) There is a wider point here for communities far beyond one Leicestershire parish. Comparable education endowment orders published on legislation.gov.uk show the same basic method being used when historic church-school assets need a new legal home: split the trust, keep a religious education share local, and roll the larger school share into longer-term support for church schools. Hathern’s case may be modest in cash terms, but it is part of an older system that still shapes where regional education money goes. (legislation.gov.uk)