Government appears to scrap the forced academies policy –in one sense, at least

The government appears to have suggested the ending of its Conservative predecessors’ policy whereby the Education Secretary must academise a school after it fails an Ofsted inspection, as part of changes including the scrapping of single-phrase judgements on schools.

A press release from the Department for Education, backed by comments from the current Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson, seemed to put an end to compulsory academisation when a local authority maintained school is graded “inadequate” through the inspection process.

Under the current law, which was introduced in 2016 by the Conservatives, the government must begin the process of academisation when a school is adjudged to be “inadequate,” or grade 4, under Ofsted’s four-level system of inspection outcomes. Because of this provision, the law means that the Secretary of State has no choice but to do so.

However, today’s developments saw the government suggesting a degree of freedom for the Secretary of State not to do so, even in such cases.

The detail

As has been widely reported, the DfE is scrapping Ofsted’s near-20-year-old system of rating all schools through one- or two-word judgements, with immediate effect.