The Department for Education is facing questions about exactly how it makes decisions on allocating schools to multi-academy trusts following a parents’ campaign against a government move to academise a school in South Yorkshire.
Trust leaders have backed a parents’ group’s call for the government to explain how decisions are being made and how the DfE’s new descriptors of academy trust quality will be fed into the process.
In a letter to the Department for Education, seen by Tes, parents of pupils at King Edward VII School in Sheffield have raised concerns after being told that a “further comparative analysis” of academy trusts would now be carried out.
The DfE’s regional director for Yorkshire, Alison Wilson, deferred a decision for the Brigantia Learning Trust to take on the school last month, after community opposition to the move.
The parents’ letter says they have been told that “a comparative analysis of additional multi-academy trusts would now be undertaken but no further information has been made available about what this entails”.
Questions on how DfE allocates schools to trusts
A letter from the DfE to Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough MP Gill Furniss said that the department was carrying out “further comparitive analysis”.
The parents’ letter says they are deeply concerned that the initial selection of the sponsor did not follow a due process.
“We would urge you to provide clear information on what selection criteria is being applied, for which potential sponsors, and how judgement will be reached. We are aware the DfE has published broad criteria on what factors may be taken into account but it is not clear what this means in practice or what benchmarks will be used,” the letter says.
This call for information has been echoed by a multi-academy trust leader who has asked to remain anonymous.
He said: “This is a question for the department to answer, not only in this case but across the board. It has published its definitions of what academy trust quality looks like, but, as leaders, what we don’t have is information about how this will be used, how trusts are assessed or what criteria any current analysis is using.
“Everyone in the system needs more clarity on this, and I hope we will see this from the department in future.”
The letter from parents at King Edward VII also urges the DfE to put the school’s academy order on hold because the school has been visited by Ofsted since its last inspection.
It says Ofsted inspectors returned to the school for a monitoring inspection last month, and the parents understand that this became a graded inspection.
“If usual timescales are applied, the outcome of this inspection will not be made public for at least 30 days. Given this information has clear relevance to this process, it would seem unreasonable to expedite any decision at the July board meeting,” the letter adds.
The Confederation of School Trusts (CST) said it would not comment on specific cases.
But chief executive Leora Cruddas said: “CST has long made the case for intelligent regulation and commissioning. There does need to be more consistency and more transparency but it would be a mistake to think that having a rigid set of criteria would necessarily lead to better decisions.
“The right match of school and trust will depend on different factors and shouldn’t be reduced to a tick-box, formulaic or algorithmic exercise. Both trusts and the government need to avoid the trap of a compliance or target-driven mindset, and instead look to the principles and culture of what makes a strong trust.”
Brigantia Learning Trust said it was unable to comment at this stage.
The Department for Education was approached for comment.
