Attention switches to pending Ofsted judgment on Pimlico Academy, with its former head now revealed in senior role at trust running it

Pupils protesting at Pimlico Academy in March.

Has an academy chain overseen by a former education minister escaped a negative Ofsted verdict on its flagship secondary school, following a visit by inspectors earlier this summer?

Fresh questions are being asked about the likely result of the inspection of Pimlico Academy in Westminster, central London, after Future Academies was forced to reveal that Daniel Smith, the school’s controversial headteacher who resigned from that post in May, still has a senior role at the trust.

Smith, who quit as Pimlico principal after weeks of media coverage centring around student race relations protests, is now “acting head of Standards and Effectiveness” at the 10-school trust, which is controlled by the former academies minister Lord Nash and his wife, Lady Caroline Nash.

That position was confirmed by the trust to this website yesterday (Wednesday), after days of rumours that Smith had not left the trust, with the Daily Mail running a story on it also featuring a response from Future.