Could other schools be at threat after DfE described two-form entry model of secondary sections of two free schools as “unviable”?

An institution which has become one of the free schools movement’s most high-profile success stories, and another at which ministers appear to have thrown many millions of pounds, are operating on a scale not much larger than that seemingly deemed as “unviable” by civil servants in relation to two former Steiner academies.

This is the upshot of fresh data analysis by Education Uncovered which appears to show up a lack of consistency in decision-making on free schools, which can lurk under the radar given that the basis on which such moves are made is generally kept secret by the government.

Education Uncovered has also now seen documents from the trust which has taken over the Steiner academies, which suggested that small secondary schools needed cross-subsidy to continue to exist.

Last week, Education Uncovered reported on a Department for Education move to force an academy trust to “review” the futures of two small secondary schools because they were not “viable”.

The DfE advised the Avanti Schools Trust, before handing it in November three former free schools which had been operating under the alternative Rudolf Steiner ethos, that it would only do so if the trust “reviewed” their operations.

The three schools are “all through” institutions, with small secondary sections designed to take only a maximum of two classes – around 50 pupils – per year group. The DfE seemed to be pushing Avanti to close two of the free schools’ secondary sections, saying – in correspondence released under freedom of information – that they were not “viable” without “significant changes” to their structures.

An email sent between officials explaining the basis on which Avanti was to be given the schools stated: “The transfer of the schools will only proceed on the basis that the two-form entry all-through model is reviewed by Avanti Schools Trust and significant changes to the structures applied in order to ensure a viable and sustainable model.”

Avanti then consulted parents on its own proposals to close the secondary section of the former Steiner academy in Bristol and to make the former Steiner Academy Frome, in Somerset, operate only up to year eight.

Despite seemingly overwhelming parental opposition to the moves – and Avanti admitting itself in its consultation summary documents that its “default approach” had been “to keep the all through model”, it seems as if the above closure proposal was put to the regional “Headteacher Board” for a decision.

The board met on January 15^th to make that decision. However, asked last week, staggeringly the DfE would not say what the outcome had been.

However, Education Uncovered wondered whether this suggested move could have implications for other schools. So I crunched the numbers to see if other schools – starting with “all through” institutions – had similar numbers to the two at-risk former Steiner academies.

The number-crunching detail

My analysis of the numbers from the DfE’s last-published official school census, which was compiled in January 2019, yielded 158 “all-through” schools – those designed to feature both a primary and a section phase – which as of last year were open to secondary pupils*.

This showed that while the two at-risk former Steiner academies – Steiner Academy Frome and Steiner Academy Bristol, as they were in January 2019 – did indeed have among the smallest numbers of pupils entering their secondary sections, a few other institutions had similar totals.

In fact, there were 15 “all throughs” with pupil numbers in year seven of 60 or fewer in 2019, of which 10 were free schools.

The “all through” school with the smallest number of children in the first phase of its secondary section – key stage 3 – as of January 2019 was not one of the Steiner academies but, rather, an institution in Lancashire called the Maharishi Free school.

Set up in 2011 – so it was in its eighth year of operation at the time of the 2019 census – it had only 18 pupils in each of years seven, eight and nine and thus a total headcount for key stage 3 of 54 children. This, of course, is fewer than the existing numbers of both the former Steiner schools in Bristol and Frome, and much fewer than the two-form entry numbers which had been questioned by the DfE.

It is true that, in terms of pupil numbers in year seven, four of the next six smallest “all-through” schools as of last year were the-then Steiner academies in Frome (25 pupils); Hereford (26); Exeter (42); and Bristol (45). Of these, Hereford was not taken over by Avanti and so remains a Steiner academy, while Exeter, though it was transferred to the chain, has a secondary section which seems not to be in line for closure.

The other two schools, among the seven smallest “all throughs” in terms of year seven numbers, included the Five Islands Academy in the Isles of Scilly. This is in a unique position, in being the only state secondary serving the islands. So, at face value at least, it is hard to see this school as being under threat as a result of the size of its roll.

The other one was Almondbury Community School, a local authority community comprehensive in Huddersfield, west Yorkshire – with primary section - whose year seven numbers appear to have dipped last year, to only 45.

Education Uncovered readers will note with interest that next on the list of the smallest “all-throughs” by pupil numbers is Parkfield, the free school which ended up being built next to Bournemouth airport after spending several years in temporary buildings. The school’s capital costs have not been released by the government, but are thought possibly to run into the tens of millions.

Parkfield, which transferred from being run by a single academy trust to the larger Reach South in 2018, had only 46 pupils in its year seven as of last year. This is only one more than Steiner Academy Bristol, with its allegedly “unviable” two-form entry secondary structure.

Grindon Hall Christian School in Sunderland, the former private school which was lined up to be taken over by the now-defunct Bright Tribe chain, had only 55 year seven pupils last year.

Meanwhile, Reach Academy Feltham, one of the free schools movement’s oft-cited success stories, which boasts as Ofsted-outstanding rating, had only 60 pupils in year seven last year. This, however, represents all its places having been filled, the school having predicted when it applied to the DfE for funding that it would have 60 children in each year group.

Finally, while the Avanti Schools Trust was told to review the structure of those two former Steiner schools, seemingly because of their low pupil numbers, one of its existing free schools – which only opened in 2018 – did so with year seven numbers not much beyond two forms of entry.

Avanti Fields School, in Leicester, had only 68 children in year seven in January 2019. This was only just over a third of the 180 pupils the trust had predicted would be with it in year seven in its first year of operation, in its own official application to the DfE to open the school.

When considering all state-funded secondary schools – not just “all through” institutions – there were 45 across England with numbers in year seven of 50 or fewer last year, my analysis also revealed. Of these, 14 were free schools. including the Eton-sponsored Holyport College in Berkshire, which was set up to have only 40 pupils in year seven.

Parents at the two former Steiner schools will point out that the plan of operating on small numbers throughout – in both their primary and secondary sections – was signed off by the government before they opened.

Indeed, the successful DfE application forms for both the Frome and the Bristol schools forecast that both would have only 26 pupils per year group in the secondary section.

The DfE data shows the two schools appearing to have been keeping, at least, roughly to that plan in every year group as of January 2019, with the exception of year 10 at Steiner Academy Bristol, which strangely is recorded as having only three pupils.

A parent from Steiner Academy Frome told me that “Until Ofsted came in in November 2018 [failing the school] all our classes were full and most (if not all) had waiting lists”.

Parents would appear to have a case, having opted for these schools with their children, in feeling let down if the decision is now to change those arrangements.

Are two-form entry secondaries viable without cross-subsidy? What Avanti told parents

The Avanti trust’s documents summarising its responses to consultation on the closure of the two former Steiner academies for older year groups makes fascinating reading.

In particular, there is a section which appears to suggest that smaller secondaries – two-form-entry or smaller – cannot return balanced budgets without a cross-subsidy from unspecified “other income”.

The documents – separate ones were issued for each school, though the text here is identical – say:

“During the due diligence period we reviewed the financial and educational challenges of the 2FE [two form-entry] all-through model. As part of this review we met with some existing 2FE all-through providers.

“From discussions with senior leaders in these schools it soon became clear that these institutions were heavily reliant on other income streams in order to maintain balanced budgets.

“In one of the schools the Board of Trustees are now looking to open additional forms of entry to secure their long-term financial stability.

“We also worked with other MATs to undertake some financial modelling based upon maintaining the 2FE model in the secondary phase. This modelling…clearly shows that maintaining a 2 FE all-through model carries a heavy and significant risk of non-financial viability.”

The documents then featured a set of figures showing that a two-form entry school would just break even if completely full, but would face an annual deficit of £246,000 if it was operating at only 90 per cent full.  

There might be scope for a more optimistic take on such figures, however: my analysis of DfE school capacity data suggests almost one in three “all through” schools are currently operating at at least 95 per cent capacity, with those that are not often being free schools which are still building up year groups, and which get additional funding to support this from the DfE.

-Local Labour MP Kerry McCarthy wrote to the Regional Schools Commissioner (RSC), Hannah Woodhouse, before Christmas, Education Uncovered understands, to express concern about the proposed closure of the secondary section of the former Steiner Academy Bristol, which is now called Avanti Gardens.

McCarthy is understood to have worries that, if it were to happen, there would not be sufficient secondary places in the area in the coming years. Again, it would be good to know how the Headteacher Board/RSC discussions went on this, and – of course - what was decided.

   

Snap analysis: why does this matter?

With virtually no information easily available to the public on why civil servants and their Headteacher Board advisers are taking decisions crucial to schools’ futures, including whether they should stay open or close, and the public still barred from attending the meetings themselves, it is right to subject such moves to whatever scrutiny this website can muster.

If the government can move to close some schools on grounds that they are not “viable”, is this a consistent position, given the situation facing other institutions?

It may be, of course, that most of the other institutions I mention in the data analysis section above could face closure by a government focusing on saving money. But I suspect this is not the case: a department willing to throw many millions, for example, at keeping Parkfield school, near Bournemouth, open, is clearly picking and choosing which institutions it wants to help.

And if the successful Reach Academy Feltham – which admittedly is part of the large academy trust REAch2 – is able to operate on relatively small entry numbers, it begs the question as to why a two-form entry policy at the two threatened former Steiner academies is now said by the DfE to be “unviable”.

Whatever one thinks of the merits or not of the free schools policy, once an institution has been set up, pupils, parents and staff surely deserve a sense that it will be treated consistently – they would say, fairly – in relation to other schools.

In a system which has been made to be so fragmented by this government, and which is subject to such limited transparency, more light would expose this lack of consistency. For this is a world, set up and now operated largely in the shadows by Whitehall, in which behind-the-scenes calculations and conversations, and the absence of any clear decision-making rules, seem to prevail.

*There are a few “all-throughs” which, while allowed to admit secondary pupils in the future, do not currently have any. So I have excluded them from this analysis.