South Nottingham College Academy Trust
This
small trust was established by Central College Nottingham, a further education college which acts as sponsor to two academies: South Nottinghamshire College Academy and Top Valley Academy.
Ofsted judged South Nottinghamshire Academy to be good in May 2013. Inspectors noted the close relationship between sponsor and academy. There were “effective arrangements” for communications between the two which tracked achievement and attendance. Ofsted also noted the “productive relationship with the local authority” which provided external evaluation.
The 2013 GCSE cohort at South Nottinghamshire Academy was heavily skewed to the top end with 53% previously high-attaining pupils, 40% previously middle-attainers and 6% previously low-attaining ones. However, only 47% of this cohort achieved the benchmark*.
Top Valley Academy became an academy in September 2012 and has not yet been inspected. Its predecessor school, Top Valley School and Engineering College, was judged Satisfactory in 2011. The 2013 GCSE cohort was slightly skewed to the bottom of the ability range: 45% of this cohort reached the benchmark. 57% had reached the benchmark* in 2012 when the GCSE cohort was broadly comprehensive .
Care should be taken when judging schools according to their results alone. They need to be checked against intake. But such low results at South Nottinghamshire Academy with its high proportion of previously high-attaining pupils are a cause for concern. Only 68% of the previously high-attaining pupils achieved the benchmark*. The national average for such pupils is 94.7%.
The Learning Schools Trust
The Learning Schools Trust operates four academies on behalf of for-profit Swedish firm, Kunskapsskolan.
Ofsted judged two of them to Require Improvement and a third, Ipswich Academy, which had been
officially opened by Michael Gove in November 2013, was judged Inadequate the previous July. A fourth academy, Elizabeth Woodville Schools, has not yet been inspected.
Kunskapsskolan schools all use “KED pedagogies” – Ofsted was not particularly impressed.
In 2008, when Kunskapsskolan announced its interest in English schools, it said:
“The ambition is for 30 academies as well as a handful of profit-generating independent schools in England over the next 10 years.”
Peje Emilsson, chair of Kunskapsskolan, spoke to the US-based, libertarian think-tank,
the Cato Institute, in 2011. He told the audience his firm could increase test results at a 20% cheaper cost. In the UK, he said, he had told his “Conservative friends” he could do it even more cheaply. Emilsson, according to the Cato Institute, believes a “competitive for-profit market” which has proved so successful when selling “cell phones and coffee shops” could be a “mechanism for replicating what works”.
It doesn’t appear to have done so in the three Kunskapsskolan academies inspected so far.
*The benchmark for Y11 pupils is 5 GCSEs (or equivalent) A*-C including Maths and English.
Notes: Pre-warning letters to academies can be downloaded
here. Ofsted reports can be downloaded
here.
ADDENDUM 23 March 2014. The headline has been changed. It was originally "Halted academy chains: here are two more."
Comments
The DfE is right to halt the expansion of unpopular and unsuccessful chains. They should look to see what is popular with parents. Labour's backing of parent-proposed academies is a positive step. Many free schools are already in-line with that model, and while there have been some spectacular failures, there will be some spectacular successes too. When parents and communities strongly believe in their local schools, that is when they thrive.
Just to add ... implicit in my comment above is the sad fact that Local Authorities don't always understand what parents want either. That is why many have consistently failed to deliver popular schools, or improve unpopular ones. So, while I agree that LAs should have input into parent proposed academies, it should be in the form of facilitation and advice rather than "direction".
The best LAs provide support for their schools - this even extends to offering support to academies although they're not legally obliged to do so. But if the offer is rejected then the LA can do little except to alert the DfE.
LAs have a legal responsibility to manage school place supply. At the same time there's a "presumption" that all new schools will be academies or free schools. LAs have no say whether a free school, parent-led or otherwise, opens in their area. The National Audit Office found over 80% of secondary free schools had been opened in areas where there was already a surplus. This could threaten the viability of existing schools.
However, often the surplus of places in existing schools is due to the fact they are not popular. They are not providing families with what they want. Good schools attract families like magnets. In areas of high density population, such as London, it is only the non-good schools that are under-subscribed.
Unfortunately the NAO report you refer to did not report on what portion of the surplus places were "good+" places as opposed to "requires improvement or worse" places.
Local Authorities are legally obliged to manage school place supply as I said - they are not allowed to have a surplus over a certain proportion. Unfortunately, government reforms make this job increasingly difficult if not impossible. LAs cannot shut academies or free schools so if an area had too many places for the number of children then the axe would have to fall on an LA school even if it were oversubscribed and good or better.
The opposite is also true - LAs faced with the need for extra places can't open their own schools because of the "presumption" new provision will be academies or free schools. And plans can be thrown into disarray if, as happened in Lincolnshire last year, an academy chain decides arbitrarily to close one of its secondary academies.
Given the generally crowded nature of the UK, surely you acknowledge that the latter might be happening in some areas? It certainly happens in parts of London where there is anything but "not enough children".
In any 'free market' we create, for they are certainly created, there are always winners and losers. Is this really what education should be creating? If so, then which citizens deserve to be left out? Also, which deserve to sit on top of the pile and why (because they can afford to move away from 'not-good' schools)? Whose responsibility is it to ensure the system works and is equitable?
As difficult as these questions are to even articulate, it is the responsibility of any decent society to face them honestly. What the last several decades should have taught us is that ordinary citizens cannot leave this important work to a 'free market' any more than we can have confidence that our politicians are capable of performing the task.
1. In some areas, the LA provision for education is a catastrophe that has long since unfolded, and been allowed to rot, and ..
2. In other areas, the LA is so propped up by vested interests that the concerns of ordinary local parents are a long way down the list of priorities.
In both of those situations, the academy/free school programme can provide a catalyst for change. That is why it is popular with many people.
Standing back from this whole debate I see many commentators selectively highlighting problems with academies, and others selectively highlighting problems with LA run schools.
Both have their issues, and there needs to be a middle ground.
I'm glad that Labour has left open the door to Parent Proposed Academies (aka Free Schools without some common sense thrown in) in their education policy, because that may well be the answer.
We'll just have to wait and see.
Typo Correction: That should have read "Free schools WITH some common sense thrown in"
The National Audit Office found there was still a national surplus of primary school places. However, it recognised there were hotspots such as London where there is a pressing need for more places. This has to be managed - LAs are legally obliged to do it but find this increasingly difficult as I have said.
But I wasn't talking about the hotspots. I was talking about the 81% of secondary free schools which have been opened in areas already with surpluses. This money would have been better spent supplying places where they were needed.
Progressive LAs such as Camden are taking strategic action to ensure the same doesn't happen in their areas (see para 5.4 http://democracy.camden.gov.uk/documents/s29596/Admissions%20Updates%202...).
The Schools Admission Code allows faith schools which are their own admission authorities (VA, Foundation schools and academies) to prioritise according to faith. Unfortunately, many such schools go beyond what is allowed to give priority to those whose parents do church-related activities such as housekeeping which aren't required by faith. I satirised this here.
That said, LAs have no power over academies to ask academies to take more children if demand for places increases. So LA maintained schools have to take more than their fair share of the increased demand. But if all schools in an area become academies, then LAs will find it impossible to plan for a growth in demand though they're legally obliged to do so.
There's no reason why academies can't work in partnership with their local authority, whether the LA has "power" over them or not.
As at the national level, I question the motivation and ethics of local politicians. In both cases, examples of ideology overriding reason abound, resulting in poor decision-making, a loss of confidence in their leadership and an unwillingness to accept that the way we did things in the past in education is not likely to work for the future.
I find the present preoccupation with the structure of education a distraction from the really important issues. What is education for? If it is just about our economic performance on the global stage in future, it will produce far too many losers. If we can reach a consensus about the aims of education, we can them proceed to construct a curriculum fit for our young people in an uncertain future. From this platform, we can set clear priorities for reform of the service over time, preferably free from the meddling of politicians in governance both locally and nationally.
At present, too many young people face an uncertain future and are ill-prepared by the system to adapt. We can choose to move the chairs around on deck or we can turn the ship around. It doesn't matter what schools are called. It does matter that they are fit for purpose and such a destination does not fit with the present short-term 'solutions', tied as they are to the chance outcome of successive general and local elections.
Sorry for the rant!
In the meantime, children still need to be educated, and in the absence of any kind of high level consensus on how that should be done, it is up to parents and teachers to do whatever they can for their children and communities. In some cases, the free school programme has enabled them to make significant progress on that, and a proportion of schools created in those circumstances will be highly successful. Time will tell how big the proportion is.
"In areas where the demand for places is rising sharply, particularly at primary, there is some evidence that academies are using their freedom to choose not to expand or community schools are looking to academy status as a means of avoiding expansion in the future".
DfE report here
But many are not. I've said before, 81% of free secondary schools are in areas with surplus places. Not one of the secondaries inspected so far has been judged Outstanding although we were told that these plucky pioneers would act as shock troops (or was it storm troopers?) which would force all other schools to improve.
Up to a point -
http://www.richmondandtwickenhamtimes.co.uk/news/11054937.First_choice_s...
Richmond-u-Thames has generally had a good reputation for its schools. However, iirc, it also had a large percentage of parents opting for private school places but the recession made that too expensive for them so there was an influx of children to the state sector.
http://www.richmondandtwickenhamtimes.co.uk/news/10644349.Crunch_time_fo...
the comments are quite interesting
Well that's where the narrative ties in with JD's original post and my original comment.
It's an unfortunate fact that in many cases Richmond families are switching to private (or church) school places at secondary level because they are trying to avoid their two local LST academies.
Plus, exactly the same finger could be pointed at VA schools.
The best (only?) way to provide equitable access to high quality education for every child of every ability and social background is for the state through elected local government to ensure the right to a high quality local school for every child, managing admissions so to secure the most mixed intake possible in terms of ability.
Parents can be given preferences but in such systems the vast majority of parents are happy with their local schools which have effective mechanisms that address complaints underpinned by the Local Authority.
In such a system education is taken out of politics and out of controversy. Schools stay out of the news and teachers, parents and pupils get on with supporting each other.
This is how education works in countries like Finland where standards are consistently higher than in marketised systems like ours.
Bogstandard excellence is best.
They're inspected in the latter half of their second year of opening, and in many cases they're in temporary accommodation. It's a pretty tall order for them to demonstrate the 2 clear years of outstanding progress that is required for an outstanding Ofsted rating! Give them more time Janet.
However, in the absence of that perfect system, people are making the best of a bad job. The anger should be directed at the politicians, not the people who are trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.
What is frustrating is that the underperforming sponsored academies cannot easily be taken over by a more effective sponsor, or revert back to the LA and get support in a different way. Academies run by different trusts are being set up to compete with each other for pupils in their area, rather than work together in partnership.
However, some academies can and do work in partnership with local parents, other local schools, and with their Local Authorities, to the benefit of their communities. That behaviour is (thankfully) not unique to maintained schools.
The two years of outstanding progress is no longer required by Ofsted. One year is enough.
I am not angry with you Beth and agree that parents have to put their kids first and do the best they can. I also believe that there is a growing number of parents that are getting fed up and angry with our marketised unaccountable system.
The Academies Commission (2013) feared a population of "hard-to-place" children could emerge because LAs can't direct academies to accept pupils.
An example of a problem caused by academization was in Lincolnshire when one academy chain decided without consultation to close one of its academies. Lincs County Council realised belatedly this would make it impossible for them to plan school place supply. See here.
*the faq link to the report is broken - I will try and fix it asap.
We were told free schools were going to smash through complacency and their mere existence would cause results in all other schools to rise. This was an incredibly stupid thing to say. Free schools as a group are not better or worse than any other group of schools.
I have no problem with free schools being established in areas where spaces are needed especially in the hotspots. But money is wasted when they are set up where they're not needed such as:
Beccles
Route 39
Oldham
Stour Valley
Becket Keys
The moth-balled, brand-new free school in an area which actually needed extra places but received insufficient applications.
The Local Government Association wants a ban on free schools being set up in areas with surplus places.
At the same time as free schools are opened in areas where spaces aren't needed, the DfE has just turned down a parent-led, council-approved proposal in London.
You are right about families focusing on practicalities in the absence of 'any kind of high level consensus on how (it - change) should be done'. Who wouldn't see the sense in that? My point is that if we fail to acknowledge that the present system is fundamentally flawed, we will go on lurching from one set of politically driven 'quick fixes' after another ever few years and in a decade from now we will be having the same conversation in relation to some other crisis, because there is a crisis.
We all agree that no parent actually wants less than the best that education can offer for their child. Not all families are in a position to choose a school they like for their child, especially if it should involve moving house. This is why local arrangements for ensuring there are sufficient places at all levels are so important, but that is just the first part of the equation. We don't just need sufficient places locally. We need high quality provision for all. This has to include youngsters with special needs and others who are often hard to place.
The impact of the structural changes to local schooling (academies, free schools etc) is by its very nature hap-hazard! The columns of LSN are bulging with real examples of just how this works in practice. The main problem presently is that the government in power has created a situation where the expensive reforms it claimed would improve the lot of children has actually made things worst for far too many and allocated a huge amount of extra funding to see the situation over standards (when comparing like with like), statistically unchanged.
Then signing up to the local Fair Access Protocol should be a condition of academy status.
That's obviously just political rhetoric. I'm not sure anyone really expected anything quite so dramatic.
Opponents of the policy use a lot of political rhetoric too.
Obviously there are a lot more primaries than there are secondaries, and we're only in the second year of inspections, with the 2012 openers being inspected at the moment, so there is still time for one of them to be declared outstanding (if that's what everyone is waiting for).
Janet, the new Ofsted framework requires pupils to be showing outstanding progress before an outstanding judgement can be given. Obviously a period of time is required to demonstrate that. I thought it was over 2 years, but Brian's comment above suggests it might have recently changed to 1 year.
Again and again we're told about how free schools will transform education, how free schools are outperforming other schools, how free schools allow "innovation", how "outstanding" they're going to be (even to the extent of producing misleading marketing - see here and here).
Yes, some of the primaries have been judged Outstanding just as non-free school primaries have been. But not a single free secondary school - not even (especially not even) those secondary schools which were previously independent ones.
Meanwhile, another primary free school has been judged Inadequate.
Most parents have long since switched off from it all.
Janet is correct in her assertion that "Political rhetoric in the form of deception has been going on since academies were first set up." I have no objection to changes to the way schools are structured or what they are called. I am only interested in how effective they can be in devising and delivering the most effective curriculum experience in a manner that meets the needs of pupils and our society now and in the future. The politicisation of education actually stands in the way of that goal, and I believe the billions we are currently spending on structural reforms are not about to bring us closer to achieving it.
Most stuff on this site is linked to evidence and, as John says, is written to counter political and media spin.
Parents may indeed have "switched off" but they perhaps won't be quite so laid back when they find money supposed to be spent on their children's education is finding its way into the pockets of shareholders behind the trusts that run academies; or that their school is filled with untrained, inexperienced teachers; or their children are being offered a narrowed curriculum (spun as "depth") instead of a rich one; or their children can't get into the local school because the admission criteria has been manipulated to increase the school's share of "desirable" pupils; or their children's wellbeing is being threatened by increasing emphasis on test results...
Yes, but it is evidence that is sometimes selectively presented to back up a pre-determined position.
JD: "Parents may indeed have “switched off” but they perhaps won’t be quite so laid back when they find money supposed to be spent on their children’s education is finding its way into the pockets of shareholders behind the trusts that run academies"
If it gives the results they want, then many won't care, any more than they care about profit-making in private schools. If they don't get the results then they will care very much, in the same way that they care very much about the vast amounts of money LAs spend supporting schools that never seem to make the grade.
JD: "or that their school is filled with untrained, inexperienced teachers"
Many won't care so long as the teaching is good/outstanding. They will care if it isn't. Unfortunately QTS isn't a guarantee of quality, but it is a safety net, so I agree with you that academies should employ staff on the same terms as maintained schools. Many do anyway, and I think that should be acknowledged.
JD: "or their children are being offered a narrowed curriculum"
Yep - Agree the national curriculum should be mandatory for academies. Many academies are using it anyway, and I think that is something else that should be acknowledged.
JD: "or their children can’t get into the local school because the admission criteria has been manipulated to increase the school’s share of “desirable” pupils"
Yep - they will definitely care about that. Academies need to stick to the admissions code, and be seen to be behaving responsibly, or it will attract bad publicity. However, its something that many VA schools have been getting away with for a long time.
JD: "or their children’s wellbeing is being threatened by increasing emphasis on test results"
Yep, they won't like that either, if they recognise it as a problem. However many parents seem to thrive on it.
"If it gives the results they want, then many won’t care, any more than they care about profit-making in private schools. If they don’t get the results then they will care very much, in the same way that they care very much about the vast amounts of money LAs spend supporting schools that never seem to make the grade."
Where is your evidence for this breath-taking statement? The truth is that when like is compared with like, in terms of mean intake ability, and the 'equivalent scam' is discounted, in general, LA schools outperform Academies and Free Schools and always have. Academies and Free Schools have powers over admissions policies that LA schools do not have.
Some parents may not mind about the profits made in various ways by the companies that run Academy chains, but taxpayers certainly do. Or would if they could find out what is really going on.
LAs pay their staff including expert education support staff modest salaries, as do LA schools. Not so Academies and Academy chains that are stuffed with 'Executive' this that and the other posts on £110K plus salaries (while seeking to reduce the wage bill for teaching staff in any number of clever ways) not to mention the vast costs of the DfE Academies and Free Schools administration and support system itself. LAs are models of efficiency and parsimony in comparison.
In some areas, academies have been a catalyst for change, in others they haven't. It is right to evaluate the programme as a whole, but by selectively highlighting the areas where the policy hasn't worked, and using that "evidence" to bash the programme as a whole, people risk throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
An objective analysis would also recognise the positives.
I don't think that overall, taking into account all the available evidence from various sources, it is possible to conclude that Academies have had a beneficial effect on the English school system and certainly not in terms of the vast cost to the taxpayer.
Academies have certainly been a catalyst for change where I live, and elsewhere in Cumbria.
When Labour came to power in 1997, Barrow-in-Furness had five 11-16 schools (one of which is RC) feeding a Sixth Form College plus one independent fee-paying school. All the state schools were popular, well regarded and not in trouble with Ofsted. Cumbria county council had in the early1990s spent many £millions on building improvements and providing extra school places as the town prospered. The quality of accommodation was excellent in all the schools.
In 2006 an Academy plan emerged, supported by both Labour and Conservatives on the county council that was fiercely resisted by local parents in which three of the schools would be closed and its pupils moved into a new sponsored Academy to be built on the playing fields of one of the 11-16 schools.
The Academy is now in Special Measures, as is the only surviving LA school, following having 'agreed' to take large numbers of pupils from the poorest part of the town that the new Academy couldn't/wouldn't admit. The RC school was also expanded as part of the plan and is now also in deep trouble with Ofsted. The Independent school, which was in financial difficulties, is to expand as a Free School. The Academy was beset with scandals, poor results and strife from its opening. The large sites of two of the former 11-16 schools are to be auctioned off with the expectation that the school buildings only recently enlarged and refurbished at huge taxpayer expense will be demolished with playing fields and other land used for housing. The third 11-16 school has a beautiful listed town centre main building and still stands empty having lost its pupils in 2009.
In the meantime Barrow has fallen on very hard times, possibly not unconnected with the destruction of its secondary education system that was working very well.
A very similar disaster has beset Carlisle.
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