Are schools about to be given other “trust” options, beyond the academies scheme?

The schools white paper, expected imminently, will see every school “benefit[ing] from being in a strong trust,” the education secretary, Nadhim Zahawi, said in a tweet on Tuesday.

But what, exactly, did he mean?

Background

There has been speculation about the contents of the white paper since last autumn, with the Guardian reporting in October that ministers were considering re-instating key stage 3 Sats and abandoning limits on teachers’ working hours – ideas which have since reportedly been ditched.

However, clearly there will be elements of the white paper which will see ministers returning to the issue of school structures.

Some observers have wondered whether the government will seek to break what – for all the unending hype from the government and its supporters about the academies policy - on the ground has been a kind of stalemate in recent years, between the academy trust and local authority schools systems.

For academy numbers have not been rising hugely, and more than half of schools remain unacademised, despite two decades of government promotion of the policy. Yes, thousands of schools have become academies since it was accelerated by Michael Gove in 2010. This is remarkable. But thousands more have yet to do so.

The white paper may take a recently-unusual systematic view of the school structures landscape, with close observers of the academies policy say has been lacking since it was attempted in the 2016 white paper “Educational Excellence Everywhere,” published under Zahawi’s predecessor-but-three as education secretary, Nicky Morgan.

That paper was abandoned because Morgan’s main policy, of blanket academisation of schools such that the local authority maintained sector was proposed no longer to exist by the end of 2022, had to be ditched as this proved so unpopular, including among some Conservative MPs and councils.

Last April, Zahawi’s immediate predecessor, Gavin Williamson, tried again to move England’s structures more towards that favoured by the government, by stating that he would like to see all state-funded schools in England – including current non-academies – in multi-academy trusts.

“The government’s vision is for every school to be part of a family of schools in a strong multi academy trust,” he said. However, there was to be no compulsion. And there seems little evidence of any rush towards academy status as a result.

So, will Zahawi go further with the white paper? And, if so, how will the government seek to do it?

That tweet

His twitter statement on this was very brief. As part of a tweet about “Our Schools White Paper” Zahawi wrote: “Underpinned by a stronger school system, every school will benefit from being in a strong trust.”

The “will” in the sentence above sounded definitive enough to suggest an element of compulsion. But how would this be achieved, given the problems the government had last time it attempted to force mass academisation?

There may be an extra element of challenge for the government here, beyond even that faced in 2016, if “being in a strong trust” turns out to mean “being in a multi-academy trust”. I did read it that way initially, being familiar with Williamson’s statement last year, and also given that for several years now, the government has favoured schools being situated within MATs.

If this is the case, though, and we are sticking with the notion of a more compulsory element to all of this than was present in the Williamson push, then many single-academy trusts face being forced to join MATs.

This is a large number of schools: as of last month, 1,350 were in single academy trusts, according to government data. More than half of the academy trusts in England currently only contain one school.

I suspect that many such institutions – the vast majority of which are secondary schools, I imagine – have enjoyed the independence of this situation. Indeed, given that ministers have sold the academies programme – albeit misleadingly* – as promoting school autonomy, the notion of forcing individual academies to join trusts might be a tricky message for them to communicate. Certainly, there will be resistance from some schools – the case of one academy which has escaped, at least for now, having to join a MAT despite being under huge pressure after receiving a Financial Notice to Improve from the government may be an interesting signpost.

Robin Bevan, headteacher of the Southend High School for Boys, which is within a single academy trust, and a National Education Union past president, told me: “I simply cannot see how compulsion could possibly be recommended. There are [more than 1,000] SATs each of which has a governing body that has determined, probably with repeated introspection, that forming and sustaining existence as a SAT is their preferred model, many retaining strongly collaborative links with local schools and the local authority.

“A high proportion of these schools are in Conservative constituencies and will ‘howl’ if there is any forced move…equally there are a number of LAs where very high proportions of schools remain ‘maintained’.

“If there is a proposal [to have] trusts for all, it would need to be through/with a structure that does not impinge on the existing choices of so many governing bodies. There’s nothing in the public arena to suggest what this might look like.”

He added: “I anticipate [the white paper] will either be so daft as to trigger a serious objection in Tory heartlands or so soft that it will ultimately mean not a lot at all.

“Which then raises the natural question as to what a future Labour government might seek to do to restore systemic coherence (and more) to the public provision of schooling.”

Trusts which are not academy trusts?

There is another intriguing aspect of Zahawi’s tweet. Note that the word “academy” was actually missing from his pledge that “every school will benefit from being in a strong trust”.

So, given the problems the government had last time it tried to force all schools into academy status – and, some sceptics will add, the fact that primary schools have now had nearly 12 years to opt for academy status, and more than half have so far demurred – might something else be on offer?

Could the government be looking at some other form of trust model for schools? After all, other trust models are available-Tony Blair controversially launched a “trust school” policy in the mid-2000s.

Summing up, then: all schools in trusts, but not necessarily in academy trusts?

The education policy expert John Fowler, of the Local Government Information Network, said: “It could be that the word ‘academy’ is seen as toxic by many maintained schools. And it could be that [we are about to get] something completely new, getting local authorities to support local trusts of all the schools in an area, including academies.”

Jon O’Connor, chair of the Co-op Schools Network, which provides support to co-operative trust schools which were developed following Blair’s trust schools legislation, said that Zahawi appeared to be a more “savvy operator” than the “abrasive” Williamson, and that the current secretary of state might want to avoid a battle with the profession.

O’Connor said: “The last two years [of the pandemic] have made many re-think the importance of co-operation or collaboration – which has to some degree highlighted underlying issues with the more marketised approach to public service education, as represented by the academy sector and the management systems which go with it.

“Having said that, education remains for the time being hugely driven by vocational motivation – all segments of education deserve recognition for the extraordinary efforts made to support their communities…

“Either way, there is a sense that the current Secretary of State is a more savvy operator…than his recently ennobled predecessor and he may not relish the idea of a fight to the death with unions, learning communities and the profession as a whole, which deserves some space and respect for the work they do, rather than a further flourish of ideological tinkering.”

This is certainly an intriguing thought. And it is not as if the idea of groupings of schools, sometimes outside of the academies policy, has not come up in the past.

For example, the schools white paper of 2009, under Ed Balls as children’s secretary, said local authorities should promote “the most effective partnership arrangements, including federations, Trusts and local area clusters”.

It is possible, of course, that Zahawi’s view is that it is so obvious to associate the word “academy” with “trusts” in relation to government policy that it was not necessary to use the a-word.

But perhaps the omission was significant, given the policy background.

In any case, it seems that we will not have long to wait- though nothing is predictable given the current predicament of the Prime Minister, it is possible, I understand, that the white paper will be published in the coming days.  

*The policy actually offers autonomy at the trust level, rather than at the school level.