Why Labour are wrong to water down accountability for failing schools

School leaders and even Labour MPs are warning it's a mistake

The Schools Bill (Clause 44) ends the automatic conversion of failing schools into academies.

This measure was put in place because it became apparent during the New Labour years that the most effective way to turn around failing schools at scale was to put them under new management.

And it was made automatic, because if there was a question or discretion, that opened the way for bitterly divisive local campaigns and lengthy legal actions.

The Labour MP Siobhan McDonagh said during the second reading debate:

“I know from bitter personal experience that any change to the status of a school can become highly political. The current system, in which failing schools automatically become academies, provides clarity and de-politicisation, and ensures a rapid transition. I fear that making that process discretionary would result in a large increase in judicial reviews, pressure on councils and prolonged uncertainty, which is in nobody’s interests.”

She said on the Today programme that the end of the academies order will mean that

"the DFE will find itself mired in the high court in judicial review. When we tried to transfer our first failing school to a Harris academy we spent two years in court, and children... don't have that time to waste."

Rob Tarn, the chief executive of the Northern Education Trust, has made the same point:

“If there’s no longer a known, blanket reality… There is a risk that, where it’s been determined a school needs to join a strong trust, it will take much longer and we will go back to the early days of academisation when people went to court.”

The Children’s Commissioner has made the same point. In her written evidence to the Bill Committee she says that:

“I am deeply concerned that we are legislating against the things we know work in schools, and that we risk children spending longer in failing schools by slowing down the pace of school improvement.”

In oral evidence to the same committee the Children’s Commissioner noted that:

I cannot let children remain in failing schools, so if those are going, I need to know what is going to happen. Childhood lasts a very short time, so if a child is in a failing school, how will those schools be improved, immediately and effectively? […]

Probably the main reason for academy orders was to try to expedite improvement quickly against a backlash. Would it not be great if we could get everyone on side to be able to act really quickly, together, to improve schools that need improving?

She is right.

The Confederation of School Trusts, has said the current system offers struggling schools “clarity” as they “will join a trust, and that process can begin immediately”.

They are warning that turning schools around:

“can be much tougher with the mixed responsibilities of governing bodies and local authorities. We are not clear on how commissioning part-time support through the RISE arrangements makes that any easier.”

The former National Schools Commissioner Sir David Carter has warned that the:

“arguments and legal actions that will arise if a school in Cumbria is told to join a trust while a school in Cornwall just gets arm’s length support will only add delay to delivering a fairer and better offer to children.”

He notes that:

“The academy trust movement has been a success story. Not everywhere, admittedly, but in many more locations than we have ever seen before in my 40-year career.”

He is right.

Academisation works - even the government’s own impact assessment of the Bill admits that:

“Recent data shows more than 7 out of 10 sponsored academies which were found to be underperforming as an LA maintained school in their previous inspection now have a good or outstanding rating.”

Strangely the impact assessment is silent on the issues that schools leaders are raising about this clause: the risk of a return to protracted campaigns and legal action to fight academisation.

Schools Week recently looked at just this question. They went back and looked at cases where there had been protests against academisation.

All 12 schools where there had been protests but they had gone on to become academies were improved by the trust that took them over. Ten were rated ‘good’ at their next inspection, and one ‘outstanding’.

One Labour MP quoted in the Schools Week piece said the plan in this clause could lead to:

“campaigns outside every school, parents split, the secretary of state will have correspondence everywhere and a judicial review at every school. The lack of clear pathway is a bad idea for children, for parents, and for ministers.”

There are definitely some people in the government who have anti-academies views -or at least have been prepared to bandwagon with anti-academies campaigners on the left.

When he was running for leader, the Prime Minister said:

"The academisation of our schools is centralising at its core and it has fundamentally disempowered parents, pupils and communities."

Likewise the Deputy Prime Minister said she wanted to stop academy conversion “and scrap the inefficient free school programme’ (even though Free schools progress scores are significantly above the national average - in fact a quarter of a grade higher across all subjects).

The Culture secretary spoke at an anti academies conference, and the Energy Secretary said free schools were “the last thing we need”.

…So when Ministers in this government say they just want “more options” and will still be prepared to fight to put failing schools under new management even where left wing and local campaigns are against, we start from a position of some scepticism.

And the other day we saw a straw in the wind:

Glebefields Primary School in Tipton was issued with an academy order after twice being rated as less than “good”.

The DfE previously told Glebefields that the education secretary did not believe the case met the criteria to revoke academisation, despite the change of policy.

But they threatened legal action, and the SoS has changed her mind.

I worry there will be many such cases, and many more court cases too.

I worry that too many children will find themselves in schools that are failing them and need new management - but won’t get it.