Mr. Seán Cottrell:

That works in Queensland in Australia, northern Canada, Finland, France and Spain. There are several examples of it. As Brendan said, there are loose and more firm clusterings, leading ultimately to federations. The parents get to retain what they want, which is a school in their community, there are no extra buildings required and no transport is required. The back office functions of the schools are bonded. Ultimately, a fully federated school will have one board of management, one staff, one budget and one of everything, except that the school campuses stay as they are.