ISBA is a charitable company limited by guarantee. ISBA's articles of association allow for two categories of membership open to educational charities and independent schools, namely full membership and associate membership.
Full members
Full members are members of ISBA for the purposes of the Companies Act and therefore have the right to vote at its general meetings. Full membership is open to any charity or other organisation, including proprietorial schools, which:
(a) is separately constituted under its own governing document;
(b) is (or has a governing body or member of staff who is) in full membership of any one of the associations that are constituent members of the Independent Schools Council;
(c) and such charity or organisation under (a) or (b) above either:
(i) runs or controls a single independent school in the UK (provided that where a charity or other body runs a pre-preparatory, preparatory and/or senior school under the same Department for Education registration number it shall be treated as running a single school); or
(ii) runs or controls more than one independent school in the UK under different Department for Education registration numbers, save that, where each independent school that it runs would, but for this paragraph (c) itself be an Eligible School, the charity or other organisation in question shall only be an Eligible School if it operates at least one of those schools directly; or
(iii) runs or controls any other school, charity or organisation approved by the Board; or
(iv) such other independent school which in the opinion of the Board is eligible for Full Membership. This includes schools, such as state boarding schools, which combine an independent and a state-funded element.
Associate members
Associate members enjoy most of the privileges of full members but are not members of ISBA for the purposes of the Companies Act and do not have the right to vote at general meetings or to propose candidates for election to the ISBA Board. Associate membership is open to:
(a) an independent school in the UK which is not separately constituted under its own governing document; and which is not otherwise eligible to be a Full Member;
(b) a charity or other organisation which operates one or more independent schools, none of which is situated within the UK;
(c) a charity or other organisation which runs one or more independent schools in the UK, but is not in full membership of any one of the associations that are constituent members of the Independent Schools Council;
(d) a charity or other organisation which runs more than one independent school in the UK under different Department of Education registration numbers, all of which are separately constituted under their own governing document;
(e) any other school, charity or organisation approved by the Board; or
(f) such other independent school which is the opinion of the Board is eligible for Membership.
