Sir Dan Moynihan now on 44 of his schools’ governing bodies

England’s most lavishly-remunerated schools employee has cemented his position as also the country’s busiest academy governor, with new data analysis by this website showing Sir Daniel Moynihan is now part of the governance of a remarkable 44 institutions.

Sir Daniel, who according to the last published accounts data was making do with £455-£460,000 salary plus £70-£75,000 in employers' pensions contributions as of 2019-20 as chief executive of the Harris Federation, is a “local governor” at 44 of the academies run by this trust.

This is up from a figure of 35 the last time Education Uncovered looked, with Sir Daniel having started new terms of office as a governor at 14 of the schools in the past 18 months, although he has also relinquished governorships at five of the chain’s academies this calendar year.

Overall, though, Harris’s long-serving chief executive is now a feature of the governing bodies at 86 per cent of its 51 academies. The figures are based on my analysis of thousands of lines of Department for Education school governance data.

When I wrote about this back in 2018, I noted that the position of Sir Daniel – and other senior figures within academy trusts including more than one other Harris senior manager – on multiple governing bodies raised fresh questions about the input of local communities into the oversight of academies.

For, if senior figures can indeed sit in on meetings in which a community might want to raise issues about the management of a school, will that community find this more difficult?* A quick look at a few Harris “local” governing bodies in detail shows that not only is Sir Daniel on them, but the school’s headteacher and often at least one other very senior Harris manager is also serving.

These DfE governance data also show that Carolyn English, who was quoted in a media article last year** as the chain’s director of education, currently sits on 22 of the academies’ “local governing bodies,” often alongside Sir Daniel. Sabeena Hasan, also listed on the chain’s latest accounts as on its central management team, who has been its director of primary education and who has responsibility overseeing several of Harris’s schools, sits on 13.

So, in these circumstances will the local voice really be heard?

As I also pointed out in 2018, four years before that an inquiry for the government into the “Trojan Horse” affair in Birmingham recommended that no-one should be a governor at more than two schools at the same time “unless there are genuinely exceptional circumstances”.

“No uniform day” at “uniform or isolation” school

It is a regular, unremarkable and enjoyable fundraising feature in the life of schools up and down the country. But today’s “no uniform” day at Avanti Hall free school in Exeter is carrying a bitter twist for some, given the ongoing controversy attached to this institution.

Sceptical sources at this school are in disbelief that the institution should have had a “no uniform” day, as it continues with what to critics say are extremely heavy-handed sanctions, on any other day of term, for children who…refuse to wear uniform.

Avanti Hall is one of three former Steiner free schools which were handed to the Avanti Schools Trust in 2019 by the Department for Education. Avanti has introduced compulsory uniforms at the three schools this term. This represents quite a shift for those families who had opted for the schools under the alternative Steiner ethos, and with Avanti having said before the takeovers that it was “not wedded” to the introduction of uniforms.

As I reported this month, some children have been choosing not to wear uniforms to school. Avanti Hall, which has both primary and secondary sections, appears to have taken the most hardline approach in response: as Education Uncovered reported on October 6^th, at that time it was threatening to separate secondary pupils from their peers outside of lessons and ban all pupils from extracurricular activities.

I understand that the school went ahead with these sanctions. A source said earlier this week: “This [dispute] is still going on, with the school continuing to punish non-uniform-wearing children, with the most heinous of these punishments being the complete separation of the secondary pupils from their peers outside of classes.

“Perversely the school announced on Monday that they would hold a non-uniform charity day on Friday [today] as part of their ‘Avanti in the Community’ programme and to support mental health and the children’s wellbeing.

“I find this unbelievable and actually twisted: are they taunting these children? Will they be allowed to mix with their peers on Friday and back to separation after the half-term break?”

That last comment sounds like a very good question. Last time I reported on this, I sought answers from leading decision-makers at this trust and school, but got no response.

This seems a case study in how not to build a relationship with a community, and perhaps another illustration of how the academies policy can underline remoteness of decision-making.

Still no Ofsted report on the East London Science School

It is one of England’s more high-profile, well-connected institutions, with a highly distinctive educational offer, a recent record of getting in trouble with the government’s academies regulator and, until last summer at least, a maverick headteacher who was frequently in national media.

So the Ofsted report on the East London Science School (ELSS), following an inspection back in June, is eagerly awaited.

But where is it?

It is one day short of four months since that full inspection on June 23^rd, but still there has been no sign of the report.

Delays of this length have not been unknown in the past in some cases***, and no Ofsted reports are published over the summer holidays, so that accounts for some of the publication gap in this case. But still: four months is a long time, and it seems likely that an initial verdict by Ofsted has been challenged somewhere along the line by the single academy trust running the school.

ELSS was hit with a financial notice to improve by the government last December, with its former chair, Adam Atashzai, once an adviser to David Cameron during the latter’s time as Prime Minister, standing down in May.

The school was under pressure from the government to join a multi-academy trust, but resisted. Its founding principal, David Perks, who appeared in the media last winter pledging to defy the government’s advice at the time that masks should be worn in secondary classrooms, has been on a “leave of absence” since June.

ELSS’s last full inspection was in 2015, when the school was rated “good” by Ofsted. Again, it will be very interesting to see the latest report - when it finally comes.

*It could be argued, of course, that headteachers serve “ex officio” on governing bodies even in the maintained sector and that the position of chief executive of an academy trust would be analogous to that. However, there would appear to be an issue of force of numbers, here: individual academy headteachers appear to be serving alongside Sir Daniel, and other senior Harris managers, on those “local governing bodies”. As mentioned above, in these circumstances, can the community voice, if there was unhappiness, say, with management, really be heard?

**It seems remarkably hard to pin down precise positions for senior Harris managers. It appears difficult to find a list of who is running the organisation – beyond Sir Daniel himself – on Harris’s website, though perhaps I have not looked closely enough. Thus I’ve resorted to quoting a position from a relatively recent news article.

*** I have had a look at Ofsted’s database of reports published during the last academic year (there were not that many of them, because of the effects of covid). Most reports were published within eight weeks of the inspection, this shows, with the average time gap between inspection and report being 40 days. At a current gap of 79 days – that is after taking into account a six-week break for the summer holidays - ELSS has already gone longer than all but two of the 1,030 schools on this list.