It is rare to see the challenges of a "one-size-fits-all" approach to system improvement so graphically illustrated as when posted by Michael Tidd (@MichaelT1979) on Twitter last month.
The imagery of a single Northumberland secondary school’s catchment area mapped across the equivalent area around London is stark in the extreme. The lone school’s catchment area in rural Northumberland would cast a net over 350-plus secondaries in the same space in the South East.
In the latter, you can start to see how groups of schools can easily come together within the fabled "lunchtime drive" to deliver transformative change at scale. Likewise, you can understand how parachuting "leadership and expertise" long distance into more sparse locations can result in the train wreck that was Bright Tribe’s expensive dalliance with capacity building in the North East of England.
Sparsity is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to developing academies in the North. Support, capacity and funding all have a bearing on the development of multi-academy trusts (MATs).
Multi-academy trust 'capacity issues'
The MAT picture in the North East demonstrates the capacity issues. Only two trusts have 10 or more schools; seven trusts have between six and 10 schools in their chains. Beyond this, there is a long tail of 29 trusts with five or fewer; 27 with two schools and 31 single school MATs. Some 44 academies are single academy trusts.
There are a number of aspiring and highly talented home-grown MATs that are working with more schools, which is to be welcomed.
However, there are other reputable leaders who would play a more active and prominent role in supporting struggling schools but are shackled by funding issues associated with those in need of support – be that falling rolls or other budgetary pressures. That’s before you get to the thorny problem of PFI, which renders some schools virtually untouchable.
The regional schools commissioner’s office in the North Region has a tough task in driving change. Not only is it working in areas where the MAT model is harder to get right due to capacity pressures and operating with schools that are at a huge budgetary disparity in comparison with areas the DfE would hold up as models to copy such as in London; but it also has a geographic area that dwarfs all others in the country. You would have to drive for seven hours and cover over 325 miles in distance to do a triangular trip to three outpost schools in the North RSC region!
Perhaps it's time we had a serious, grown-up conversation about diverting funding to the areas of need and letting the system stand on its own two feet in areas where the academy landscape is more mature and resilient.
SCHOOLS NorthEast is hosting its inaugural Academies Conference in Newcastle on Thursday 10 May with Sir David Carter, National Schools Commissioner. To find out more and reserve your place, click here.
