Schools failing Ofsted inspection could be merged with another local authority institution, former education secretary David Blunkett proposes

Argument on whether always to force academisation on schools in Ofsted's lowest categories returns to the House of Lords today.

 

Schools which fail Ofsted inspections should be required, in normal circumstances, to either join a multi-academy trust or merge with a “high-performing maintained school serving a similar cohort of children,” a former Labour education secretary has proposed.

David Blunkett, who launched the academies policy as New Labour’s first education secretary in 2000, has made the suggestion in an amendment which he has tabled for the children’s wellbeing and schools bill, which returns to the House of Lords today.

The move, which suggests a structural intervention but without a school becoming an academy, is a new twist on a debate which has continued to rumble on during the passage of the bill, in terms of how ministers should act if a school is graded inadequate by Ofsted.

Currently, if a local authority school is either put into special measures – Ofsted’s worst categorisation – or is said to require significant improvement, a law introduced under the Conservatives requires the secretary of state to issue an academy order.

The Conservatives and some within the multi-academy trust sector want to keep this power.

However, the government is proposing, through this bill, to remove the requirement, with the secretary of state no longer having to academise a school in such circumstances, although she will still have the ability to do so. In one sense, this spells the end of the forced academies policy. 

Lord Blunkett’s amendment would retain such freedom for the secretary of state, but provide a strong steer that, in the case of a school requiring special measures,  structural change – either within the academies or local authority sector – should happen.

It states: “When making an [academy] order …the Secretary of State must make an order to –

(a)    Transfer the school to a high performing multi-academy trust, or

(b)   Merge the school with a high performing maintained school serving a cohort of children (by demographic background and prior attainment), provided that school is within the same geographical area…”

There was a caveat, though, allowing the secretary of state some freedom of manoeuvre, the amendment stating that this should be done “unless the Secretary of State believes that there is good reason to undertake another course of action”.

Under the government’s current plans, while academy orders would generally continue to be issued in the case of a school in special measures, in future those requiring significant improvement would instead first receive support from advisory teams, giving them 18 months to improve before an academy order would normally be issued.

Lord Blunkett’s move would actually appear, if it were accepted, to give the government more scope than it is currently proposing to make a non-academy change for a local authority school in special measures, since the Department for Education’s position at the moment is simply that academisation would happen in most circumstances.

The Conservatives re-iterated their opposition to the ending of the forced academy policy, the official amendments paper, for the movement of the bill to the Committee Stage today, stating that they were opposed to Labour’s proposal to give the secretary of state discretion.

The Confederation of School Trusts, a representative body for more than three quarters of academies, also argues in favour of the retention of forced academisation. It stated in a briefing note on the bill, published last month, that “Our position is that schools judged to be inadequate by Ofsted should require a change of governance in order to secure timely improvement.” 

Lord Nash, an academies minister under the Conservatives, also attacked the proposed change, during its 2nd reading in the Lords earlier this month. He described the amended academisation powers as “weak” and setting up the government for “endless litigation and judicial reviews. Good luck with that.” 

However, critics of forced academisation, including many campaigns I have covered here and elsewhere which have sometimes supported the existing headteacher in the face of a contentious Ofsted inspection verdict, will take a different view. They will welcome the greater freedom to, if the minister decides and perhaps in the face of an overwhelming local case, retain a school in the local authority sector without the legal and time costs of an academy conversion.

Even Ofsted, under Amanda Spielman who has been announced as a Conservative peer, had argued that the requirement for a school to be forced into academy status increased the stakes of inspections and should not happen, an independent report commissioned by Ofsted following the death of headteacher Ruth Perry revealed. 

Meanwhile, the former leader of the Green party, Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle, has tabled an amendment which would mandate the government to publish a report setting out proposals to allow individual academies and even entire “academy chains” to return to the local authority sector.

However, neither this move, nor Lord Blunkett’s amendment, are likely to pass, with Labour’s front bench not involved.