Strike action looming at Future Academies school, despite recent praise for the Nashes’ ever-contentious chain by Labour’s Lord Adonis in House of Lords

A primary school run by one of England’s most well-connected academy trusts is facing possible strike action next term, after its teachers raised a host of concerns with governors including their work’s effects on their mental health.

All 13 members of the National Education Union at Churchill Gardens Primary Academy in Pimlico, central London, have backed an indicative ballot on industrial action, to take place in September, the focus of which is workload and what members argue are unacceptable management practices, which endanger staff mental health.

The controversy is the latest in a long line of issues to emerge in recent years within the London schools of the 10-academy chain, which was founded and is still controlled by Lord John Nash, the Conservative donor and former academies minister, and his wife, Lady Caroline Nash.

The development comes with NEU members at Churchill Gardens – which, I understand, constitutes most teachers- having this month sent a letter to governors warning of what they say are “serious failings” of management at the trust.

Although the staff have complete confidence in the headteacher, Liane Tylee, they have expressed concerns about more senior management. In autumn last year, their letter warns, “numerous members of staff” had said that they were seriously struggling with their mental health, with the letter arguing that workload, performance management and the trust’s approach to special educational needs formed the backdrop. But there had been no action from the trust, said the letter.

The Churchill Gardens teachers also have serious concerns about the rigidly distinctive approach to the curriculum they have to teach under Future – which Education Uncovered has investigated with a particular focus on Churchill Gardens’ sister school, Millbank Academy, for example with regard to history– and particularly on its impact on children with special educational needs and disabilities. 

The curriculum itself, with pupils said by the teachers not to be taught computing – which I also wrote about last year– and design and technology, was the final object of the teachers’ concern in the letter. 

As far as I know this website is the only media outlet to have reported that Lady Nash has been stated on Future’s website as having “personally written” the British History, Ancient History and Geography key stage 2 curricula, despite apparently having no teaching qualifications.  

I am also hearing of high staff turnover at other parts of the chain: Pimlico Academy and the central services function, which is also based at Pimlico Academy, in particular.

Paul Smith, Future’s relatively long-serving chief executive, is leaving the trust this summer to join the White Horse Federation.

As well as a string of stories about Pimlico Academy’s multi-layered controversy under its-then principal Daniel Smith in 2020-21, this website also revealed last year how children at Future primaries were asked to follow an ancient history textbook in which they were invited to imagine themselves as historical figures about to kill themselves. Millbank Academy is also moving on to its ninth headteacher in six years in September, despite being chosen to launch the government’s schools white paper alongside Boris Johnson earlier this year. 

Notwithstanding this seemingly unending controversy, Future’s operation under the Nashes was nevertheless implicitly praised in the House of Lords during the passage of the schools bill last month, by Lord Adonis, the architect of the academies scheme for New Labour.

The idea with academies, Lord Adonis had said with Lord Nash sitting in the chamber during the debate, had been to found them as “entirely new institutions…entrusting the schools with sponsors – I see some of them on the Benches opposite, including the noble Lord, Lord Nash, whose wife is also a sponsor – who were absolutely committed to the highest standards of education and knew how to govern successful institutions. That was the philosophy of the academy movement.”

As you would expect, Education Uncovered will continue to cover the controversy at Churchill Gardens and across this trust in the coming months. Future itself has generally been reluctant to respond to requests for comment from this website, but will be invited to do so as that coverage continues.