Labour’s proposals to reform the English schools system, including a reduction in freedoms enjoyed by academies, has been sharply criticised by opposition Conservatives and some academy trust heads.
Academies were introduced in the early 2000s by Sir Tony Blair’s government as a remedy for failing schools in big cities. They receive the same direct government funding as state-maintained schools, but have greater flexibility in how they operate.
The number of academy schools expanded rapidly after 2010, when successive coalition and Conservative governments passed laws to encourage “academisation”. Over half of all schools in England are now academies.
What are the proposed changes?
The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill tries to make good on Labour’s manifesto commitment to “meet the needs of all children” by addressing the growing attainment gap between poorer and better-off students.
Currently academy schools can hire people who do not have qualified teacher status if they complete a one-year course that confirms they have met government standards, and schools can diverge from the national curriculum at their discretion.
The legislation will mean that academy schools must only employ people with qualified teacher status, will be legally required to follow the national curriculum, and will become part of the national framework on teacher pay and conditions.
Local councils will also receive powers to force academies to admit children, and to issue compliance orders to academies that are “acting unreasonably”, for example over admissions or imposing uniform requirements that are unaffordable for poorer families.
The act also rescinds a 2016 law that legally obliged all schools rated “inadequate” by the Ofsted school inspections to become academies. This will now become discretionary.
How radical are the changes really?
That depends who you ask. Education experts say the reforms are less radical than the promises in Labour’s 2017 and 2019 manifestos to bring academies back under the full control of local authorities.
Jon Andrews, head of analysis at the Education Policy Institute think-tank, said the proposals are “reasonably measured” compared to what might have been. “The legislation implicitly recognises academies are now part of the system and makes some relatively small changes,” he added.
Teaching unions have praised the changes. Daniel Kebede, the general-secretary of the National Education Union, said academisation had created a “disjointed and more unequal schools system”, calling the legislation a “crucial step toward restoring a level playing field”.
However, academy trusts have warned about the impact of the legislation. Leora Cruddas, the chief executive of the Confederation of School Trusts, the main academy lobby group, argued removing flexibilities over pay and working practices was particularly damaging.
“If this legislation is implemented in the way it is currently drafted it would be a significant retrograde step,” she said.
Why are Conservatives up in arms?
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch described the proposed changes to the school system as “worse than garbage” and “pure vandalism” in a speech on Thursday.
The party’s main criticisms centre on plans to curtail the academies’ existing powers to deviate from the national curriculum and hire teachers without specified “qualified teacher training”, as well as ending a rule that requires failing schools to be taken over by an academy.
Neil O’Brien, shadow education secretary, also said he is concerned about a provision in the bill that would allow local authorities to intervene in an academy’s admissions decisions.
“They are giving local authorities powers to share out pupils from good schools to prop up failing schools,” he said. “I am very worried about what left-wing local authorities will do with this power.”
Labour grandee Lord David Blunkett, who introduced the first academy schools as education secretary under New Labour, disagreed with this characterisation, arguing the bill did not represent an effort to “unravel what’s been done or go back to some bygone era”.
“I’m in favour of having a national curriculum that applies to all schools,” he told the Financial Times. “We never envisaged that academy schools would wander off on their own as if they were private schools.”
Is there room for a compromise?
Possibly. Unions are adamant that academies can be locally divisive and that reforms to the school system must aim to create a system that provides opportunity to all children — a position that academy trust heads agree with.
Patrick Roach, general secretary of the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers, also said the bill was not removing academy freedoms but “ensuring there are national frameworks, where academies like all other state-funded schools are delivering the best opportunities for all learners”.
Cruddas from the Confederation of School Trusts said that the solution, in her view, is not to remove academy freedoms over pay and conditions, but to extend them to all schools — whether academised or local authority controlled.
Education secretary Bridget Phillipson said that was already in effect the plan when she appeared in front of the Education Select Committee this week, saying that the changes were intended to set a minimum “floor” for all schools, not a “ceiling”.
She added: “That innovation, that flexibility, that excellence — much of which we have seen within the academy system — I want to be available to all schools.”
The Confederation of School Trusts said it welcomed the “direction of travel” apparently set by Phillipson, but warned that the legislation would need to be amended to say that schools only have to have “regard” for national pay scales, rather than being “constrained by them”.
A person close to Phillipson disagreed that amendments were necessary, saying that the government can simply mandate that pay scales are a minimum, rather than a maximum.
Data visualisations by Amy Borrett
