Academy trust tells school it is in line to take it over only five days after Ofsted report

The NEU's John Roan strike demonstration

An academy trust, which has been controversially chosen to take over a local authority comprehensive after it failed an Ofsted, wrote to tell parents and staff about the decision only five days after the inspection report was published, Education Uncovered can disclose.

The east London-based University Schools Trust (UST) informed parents and staff at the John Roan school in Greenwich, south-east London, that it had been identified as the “preferred sponsor” by the government only a day after civil servants triggered the process of academisation.

The letter said that the decision had been “informed by the views of an independent headteacher panel”, though, when asked by Education Uncovered, the trust indicated it was up to the government itself to disclose exactly when this panel had met.

The development comes with the National Education Union having started strike action over the forced academisation of the John Roan, a school with a long history, and with parents now crowdfunding a legal challenge against the Ofsted judgement.

The development seems to raise questions as to how the future of the school could have been considered and decided upon so quickly after it failed its Ofsted, which in itself is merely the trigger for academisation to begin.

The detail

The John Roan failed its Ofsted in a report published less than three weeks ago, on Friday, June 8^th. By Tuesday, June 12^th, the government’s Regional Schools Commissioner, Dominic Herrington, had issued an academy order, starting the process of academisation.

It is not unusual for the academy order itself to be issued quickly: investigations by this website in February revealed that this can happen before the inspection report has been published.

The academy order, however, does not usually specify any particular trust who will take over the school as sponsor. And, indeed, that was the case in this instance.

However, in his letter to John Roan staff the very next day, Wednesday June 13^th, the UST’s chief executive, Grahame Price, said that the “preferred” trust had already been chosen.

He wrote: “I am writing to you today to explain that the [Regional Schools] Commissioner has nominated the University Schools Trust (UST) to be the preferred sponsor of the John Roan School.

“The decision by the Regional Schools Commissioner was informed by the views of an independent headteacher panel.

“The panel looked at the various options, seeking to find the best possible fit for your school, recognising fully the difficulties that you face.”

The timing of any decision by the Regional Schools Commissioner, and specifically when the advice from his headteacher advisers came, however, seems to raise questions about when exactly decisions could have been taken.

The government’s “Headteacher Boards,” (HTBs) usually consisting of a mix of elected and appointed individuals, many of them headteachers from the academies sector, do indeed advise Regional Schools Commissioners on which organisations should be allowed to sponsor academies.

Any rules as to the process by which this happens are hard to come by.

However, schools facing academisation might well feel they have a case that a decision had been made prematurely, had an HTB met and made a recommendation either in advance of an Ofsted judgement having been published, or in advance of an academies order.

Did this happen?

Minutes for Headteacher Board meetings, published on the Department for Education’s website, are currently so lacking in transparency that it is not possible to work out from them when meetings have taken place, or are going to take place, beyond the ones for which minutes are already available. The latest published minutes for Herrington’s region date from March.

In the absence of official information, trying to work out when the HTB might have met

The HTB would have had to have met within days of the failing Ofsted judgement appearing for that to have happened before Price’s letter, and either on the day or the very next day after the academy order was made, in order for that to have happened.

Leaving strict legality aside, academisation sceptics will also question whether a decision having major, and seemingly irreversible, ramifications for a school and its community should have been taken so quickly.

Asked by email by Education Uncovered when the Headteacher Board met, Price replied: “I think that your enquiry relating to our being chosen as preferred sponsor needs to be answered directly by the Regional School's Commissioner's Office. I can confirm that the RSC sent the letter to us proposing UST as the preferred sponsor on the same day as the Academy Order was issued.”

We will be seeking information from the RSC, enquiries to which are routed, for the media, via the Department for Education’s press office in Whitehall.

The situation also seems to contrast with another very controversial current forced academy case, about which this website has been obsessing: Waltham Holy Cross primary school in Essex.

There, the decision to appoint NET Academies Trust (NETAT) seems to have been taken following a meeting of the Headteacher Board, but this happened six weeks after the school’s – much-contested – failing Ofsted verdict was published.

As this website reported earlier this week, NETAT faced behind-the-scenes criticism from Essex local authority for announcing its sponsorship on its website before an official notification had been sent to the school’s governing body. /news/133886/further-insights-into-chaotic-saga-of-schools-forced-academisation-revealed-in-foi-trail.thtml

This, though, was well after the school had failed its Ofsted and the academisation order had been made (the order itself came at least four weeks after Waltham’s report was published, DfE data shows).

How UST’s decision to announce its preferred sponsorship to staff so quickly will have gone down on the ground seems easy to judge, given that the National Education Union led on the timing of the decision in a press release raising a host of other concerns.

Position of the governing body and why it might matter in this case

Price’s letter to staff – another one sent to parents appears identical- mentions the John Roan’s governing body as having “agreed to UST becoming the preferred sponsor of the school,” Herrington having “on this occasion also sought the view of the school’s governing body”.

Government guidance states that, in cases where a non-academy is a “foundation or voluntary school that has a foundation,” the Regional Schools Commissioner must consult the school’s “trustees” and those who appointed any foundation governors. The John Roan has a foundation – the land on which it sits having been, according to the NEU, bequeathed to it in 1644 by the landowner of the same name, leading to the establishment of a John Roan school for boys in 1677.

The foundation’s support may therefore have been important, though it is not clear from the DfE guidance whether the RSC would have to go along with its views.

The NEU said on Monday that a Greenwich councillor and former deputy council leader, John Fahy, had resigned as a governor at the school over the controversy.

This seems likely to be another forced academisation saga which is going to occupy this website a lot over the coming weeks.