We list below links to a variety of sources that foster a critique of the current relationship between Ofsted and the Academy Trusts.

The links and narrative samples are not ours, they are courtesy of the Reclaiming Education movement. They are telling and offer a comprehensive landscape view of a system in the throes of developmental crisis.

The first reference begins with a letter from Chris Dunne to the Financial Times. ‘We may regret not having defended our education system…’

We commend the suite in entirety to our readers. Please share this article with colleagues.

• Chris Dunne’s letter, “We will come to regret not having defended our education system”,  in the Financial Times can be seen here

• Henry Stewart’s piece looking at the progress of academies against maintained schools can be read here.

• And, in case you missed these pieces on where the money is being wasted and who benefits, there is this piece in localgov.uk and this piece in Schoolsweek

• Ofsted condemns Academy Trusts:  The Government has announced that it plans to force all schools to become academies.  The major problem is going to be who will run these schools, given that Ofsted has some major criticisms of at least 8 of the large academy trusts.

• Ofsted Inspections of Academy TrustsOfsted has carried out focused inspections of academies within 9 multi academy trusts.  Significantly, only one, the last and smallest one, is positive.  The full reports can be found on the Government website here.   A map of where the academies are can be found here.

•  CfBT:  11 primary/8 Secondary“CfBT took on too many academies too quickly. The trust did not have a clear rationale for the selection of schools, a strategy for creating geographical clusters or a plan to meet academies’ different needs. As a result, standards are too low. The trust relied heavily on external consultants but did not ensure their accountability in securing rapid and secure improvement. Headteachers were unable to provide each other with the much needed mutual support or share available expertise. Current CST leaders openly acknowledge these errors.”  Full report

• Academies Enterprise Trust:  32 primary/30 secondary/5 special”After operating for nearly eight years, the Trust is failing too many pupils. Almost 40% of the pupils attend AET primary academies that do not provide a good standard of education. It is even worse in secondary, where 47% of pupils attend academies that are less than good……
  “Children from poor backgrounds do particularly badly in this Trust. The attainment and progress of disadvantaged pupils, in both the primary and secondary academies, still lags behind that of other pupils, and gaps in performance are not narrowing quickly enough……
  “The outcomes of the focused inspections failed to demonstrate that the Trust is consistently improving its academies.  Full report

• Collaborative Academies Trust: 9 schools“Collaborative Academies Trust was set up in 2012 by EdisonLearning ……
  ………Too many academies have not improved since joining the trust. Of the five academies that have had a full inspection since joining the trust, only one has improved its inspection grade compared with its predecessor school. Two have remained the same and two have declined. This means that, at the time of the focused inspection, there were not yet any good or outstanding academies in the trust. “  Full report

• E-Act (formerly Edutrust): 23 academies (was more)“…Nevertheless, the quality of provision for too many pupils in E-ACT academies is not good enough.
  ……Standards in the secondary academies are too low. Previous interventions by the Trust to raise attainment and accelerate progress have not had enough impact and any improvements have been slow.
  ….Pupils from poor backgrounds do not do well enough. These pupils make less progress than other pupils nationally. This is an area of serious concern. “  Full report

• Kemnal Academies Trust: 15 secondary/26 primary“Less than half of your academies were good or better and there are no longer any outstanding academies in your chain. ………

  .. an overwhelming proportion of pupils attending one of the academies inspected are not receiving a good education. “  Full report

• Oasis Community Learning Trust: 50? Schools – DfE list and Oasis website appear to disagree.The academy trust has grown rapidly, taking on 30 new academies in the last three years …
  Across the trust, some groups of pupils do not achieve well. Disadvantaged pupils, particularly boys, make significantly less progress than their peers nationally………. there is no evidence of an overall strategy or plan that focuses on these particular issues.  Full report

• School Partnership Trust:  41 schools“The impact of the Trust’s work in bringing about improvement where it is most needed has been too slow. Where standards have been intractably low for some time, the Trust is not driving significant, sustained improvement. …

  ……The standard of education provided by the Trust is not good enough in around 40% of its academies inspected so far. “ Full report

• The Education Fellowship: 12 schools“There is no clear record of improvement in the trust’s academies and standards across the trust are unacceptably variable. In around three quarters of the academies, standards are poor.
  Standards declined in five of the eight primary academies in 2014. In the majority of the trust’s 12 academies, the gap in attainment between disadvantaged pupils and their better off peers, both within the academies and compared with pupils nationally, remains unacceptably wide.”  Full Report

• Wakefield City Academies Trust – the only positive one!“Two years into its development, WCAT is making a positive difference to the quality of provision and outcomes for pupils within its academies. “ Full report

You can locate Reclaiming Education here…