School with past Conservative and Brexit connections in line to join academy chain controlled by Conservative donor and peer

The East London Science School, the beleaguered free school in Newham with past connections to Conservative figures including the chancellor Rishi Sunak and associations with the libertarian publication Spiked, has been lined up to join the Harris Federation academy chain.

The school, which was issued with a Financial Notice to Improve by the government in December 2020 and then failed an Ofsted inspection last year, has been asked by the Department for Education to join Harris, parents were told today.

The move, which is still subject to ratification, appears to have originated with the government’s Regional Schools Commissioner (RSC), to judge by separate letters sent to parents by the school and Harris today.

Nick Watkiss, the recently-installed chief executive of the (one school) East London Science School Trust (ELSST), wrote: “After a detailed exercise to identify how the school’s needs would best be met, I am writing to inform you that the RSC has recommended we join the Harris Federation. This decision is subject to the approval of the RSC’s [headteacher] Advisory Board at their next meeting which is taking place on Thursday 24 February….Joining the Harris Federation is also subject to a due diligence process which the federation needs to conduct.”

In a letter attached to this, Sir Daniel Moynihan, Harris’s chief executive, wrote: “We are pleased and honoured to have been asked by the government’s Department for Education to welcome your school into the Harris Federation and, while this recommendation is still subject to various processes, we wanted to write at the earliest opportunity to introduce ourselves…