The word “academy” featured only once in key Bridget Phillipson speech

Bridget Phillipson, the Education Secretary, used the word “academy” only once in a keynote speech setting out a fundamental new approach to schools reform last week.

Notably, Ms Phillipson spent almost all of her speech – which set out a new emphasis on pupil wellbeing - talking only about “trusts” of schools, rather than “academy trusts”.

In fact, while she used the word “trust” 13 times, the phrase “multi academy trust” only appeared once, in relation to plans to have Ofsted inspect MATs.

This may seem insignificant, with perhaps listeners to what she was saying expected to take the word “academy” as obviously implied, whenever the word “trust” was used.

But it may also signal a break from the approach of the previous government – and indeed, its New Labour predecessors who introduced academies, admittedly at small scale – which was to own the word as their policy, and to proclaim academy status almost as an end in itself.