Academy trust flooded under-pressure school with 25 extra staff during an inspection, FOI response reveals

Cartoon: "Stan Dupp".

An academy trust sent in 25 members of staff from other schools and head office for an inspection of a comprehensive earlier this year, a freedom of information response has revealed as controversy continues to dog the process.

Longsands Academy in St Neots, Cambridgeshire, saw the extra staff drafted in from elsewhere within Astrea Academy Trust for the inspection in February.

The development appears to have more than doubled, just for the inspection, the number of managers who would normally be on-site at the school, with eight members of senior leadership team and four “trust leaders” drafted in from outside the school.

Astrea argued, in its FOI response, that one of the benefits of being in a trust is that it can call on members of staff from other schools during inspections. But the development was contentious at the time with members of the school community, some of whom argued that it presented a false view of the school. Ofsted also seems vulnerable to questions as to whether such practice amounts to giving academy trusts an unfair advantage over local authority maintained schools.