The Department for Education’s plan for coasting schools is “heavy-handed” and “risks further damage to the health and wellbeing of school leaders”, heads’ unions have warned the government.
The warnings were in response to a DfE consultation on plans for schools that are rated as “requires improvement” in their most recent Ofsted inspection and were less than “good” in the inspection before that.
Under the proposals, these “coasting” schools could be moved into “strong [multi-academy] trusts”.
But the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL)‘s response states that there is no “legal definition” of a ‘strong trust’, insisting that the label “should be defined...before any attempt to move schools and academies in this position into a trust is implemented”.
The DfE wants to introduce the changes in September 2022.
But this could “breach” the DfE’s workload protocol, ASCL’s response states.
Under the protocol, there should be “a lead-in time of at least a year” for any changes to “accountability, curriculum or qualifications” that require schools to “make significant changes which will have an impact on staff workload”.
Schools with consistently low Ofsted gradings could be moved into MATs
Under the changes, maintained schools could be faced with conversion into an academy, while academies could be moved into a MAT.
The consultation says the move will not be automatic and will be considered on a case-by-case basis using “inspection evidence” and performance data.
But ASCL said in its response that schools and academies that had previously been graded “inadequate” but are now judged as “requires improvement” are “clearly on an improvement trajectory”.
As a result, the union says, “it would seem perverse and counterproductive” to interfere “if they are making improvements”.
Meanwhile, schools graded as “requires improvement” are “likely to have specific strengths and specific weaknesses”, says the response.
It is important that if interventions are needed, then the school should be supported by a trust or other organisation “which can meet and support their specific needs”, it adds.
Concerns over the reliability of inspections
The response also highlights concerns that the proposals would “place greater emphasis on Ofsted judgements”, and that the “reliability of inspection” could be affected due to inspectors being aware that a second “requires improvement” judgement would likely result in an academy order or termination warning notice.
It adds that, if the proposals are adopted, ASCL would encourage Ofsted to produce an impact report on how to maintain the reliability of inspection.
Proposed changes could exacerbate problems with recruitment and retention
The NAHT school leaders’ union has also submitted a response to the consultation
The union claims that the proposals to create new regulations “reveal misunderstandings about the statutory and practical role of inspection”.
Furthermore, the union believes there “could not be a worse time” to introduce a new accountability measure.
The NAHT is concerned that the policy could exacerbate problems with recruitment and retention as it will increase workload and risk “further damage to the health and wellbeing of school leaders and their teams”.
‘Requires improvement’ is an ‘inappropriate and flawed indicator for intervention’
The union claims that “as Ofsted regularly recognises and comments on the improvement journey of schools judged as ‘requires improvement’, these schools cannot be correctly identified as ‘coasting’. They are, by definition, improving.”
The union also states that in “statutory terms” a school judged as “requires improvement” has been found to be providing an “acceptable standard of education”.
Like the ASCL, the NAHT also claims that the proposed timeline for implementation “breaks the spirit” of the DfE’s workload protocol.
Concerns over regional directors
The NAHT also raises concerns around the “transparency of, and accountability for, regional directors’ decisions”.
The union says that the consultation “bestows decision making on school intervention to regional directors, but fails to adequately set out how individual regional directors will make these decisions, other than saying that this will be on a case-by-case basis”.
It emphasises the importance of “transparency”, “openness” and “redress” so that regional directors can be held to “public account” for their decisions and actions.
The NAHT also warns that the “proposal ignores the inherent conflict of interest between these decisions and government’s push for further structural change as it seeks to ensure that all schools are within so-called ‘strong’ MATs by 2030”.
The consultation was closed on 23 May 2022 and the full results and response from the DfE are yet to be published.
A Department for Education spokesperson said the evidence was “clear” that “strong” MATs have a ”good track record of improving underperforming schools as sponsored academies, with those academies on average improving more quickly than similar local authority schools”.
The spokesperson added that the department wants “all schools” to be part of a “strong academy trust” to benefit from the trust’s support in “everything from teacher training, curriculum, financial planning and inclusivity towards children with additional needs, to excellent behaviour and attendance cultures”.
