New sign of academy numbers plateauing

The number of schools leaving their local authorities to take on academy status registered its lowest September figure for four years last month, and seemingly* its third-lowest ever since Michael Gove set up the policy in its current form back in 2010.

In a new sign that academisation seems to be approaching a plateau, only 124 institutions newly took on the quasi-independent status last month.

This figure was only just over half the number of 211 for the corresponding month last year, and the lowest since September 2015.

September, which of course is the start of the academic year, is traditionally the busiest month of the year for academy openings. So this latest news may herald a further slowing-down in the number of new academies.

As Education Uncovered revealed last month, the number of schools applying to take on academy status dropped significantly last academic year compared to the figure for 2017-18, which itself had been a fall on the previous year.

September’s newly-published “open academies” data from the Department for Education also show that the number of schools in the “pipeline” to become academies is now at its lowest figure in the nearly four years for which I can find comparable DfE data.

There were 569 schools in the “pipeline” last month – that is, schools which have either applied to the DfE to convert to academy status but have not yet taken it on, or those which are being forced into it by the government, but where this has yet to take place.

This compares to a figure of 946 in September last year, and a peak of 1,387 in August 2017. Comparable data starts in January 2016, when there were 576 schools in the “pipeline”, with those numbers then taking off rapidly over the following months.

The fact that the numbers in the “pipeline” have been steadily decreasing in the past two years suggests that civil servants have been keeping the number of schools opening as academies as high as they can, given that applications have been slowing, by moving further into the queue of those which had already applied.

Implications for academy chains seeking expansion

The general slowing-down of schools newly registering enthusiasm for academy status would appear to have major implications for existing academy trusts.

Multi-academy trusts’ accounts routinely mention the intention of expanding. If such expansion will be harder to base on non-academy schools converting – because relatively few are now doing so - this suggests that many chains will have to take over other trusts in order to continue to grow.

The new data show the total number of academies stood at 8,924 as of last month, with the “pipeline” taking the total number of schools either having taken on the status or in the process of doing so getting closer to 10,000, at 9,493.

However, in the primary sector it remains a minority interest, with 33.2 per cent of primaries – outside of the free schools sector – having the status and free schools accounting for another 1.2 per cent.

Free schools

Finally, the new data for September confirm that the free schools policy has not been growing as fast as previous ministerial pledges had suggested.

Back in 2017 Theresa May, had promised, as Prime Minister, to open 100 new frees a year for the rest of this Parliament.

The September 2019 data showed only 61 new free schools opened last month, with secondary frees – 33 – outnumbering those in the primary sector (28). There were no University Technical College or Studio Schools – which are types of free school – among them.

Although slightly up on the figure of 58 new frees last year, and 54 the previous year, this was well down on the 119 which opened in 2013-14 and 107 in 2014-15.

Watch this space for more analysis on the plateauing of academy numbers.

*A note on the data: the DfE’s reporting format for its monthly “open academies” spreadsheets changed slightly back in January 2016. Since then, the DfE has published a summary sheet with a single line setting out the number of schools opening in the corresponding month.

I am confident, given that the same format has held since then, that the figures since January 2016 quoted above are comparable.

Before January 2016, there was no such summary. So I had to look back into the detailed lists of individual school openings, provided by the DfE in these spreadsheets, to come up with figures. Again, it looks like this does produce comparable data but it should be treated slightly more cautiously.