Converting to academy status can be a positive step for a school. NAHT supports the right of a school to choose to convert where it’s in the interests of everyone involved. We remain strongly opposed to forced academisation, though.

This week’s National Audit Office (NAO) report casts more doubt over the government’s continued plans to force schools to become academies even when there are no available sponsors in their area.

The NAO report says that as 2018 began there were 37,000 children in maintained schools that Ofsted had rated as “inadequate” more than nine months before but that had not yet opened as academies.

What’s most important in these cases is that where a school clearly needs support, that support is provided quickly, meaningfully and sustainably. Forced conversion is not the answer.

The lack of willing sponsors and the number of schools that have been forced to convert but are miles away from their sponsor schools underline the problems associated with forced conversion. The NAO report says that there are 242 sponsored academies that are more than 50 miles from their sponsor. Again, that’s a lot of students without a guarantee that things will improve.

Academies are an important part of a complex self-improving education system, but the government is wrong to assert that they are the panacea for poor performance. That assertion won’t please the leaders of multi-academy trusts doing creditable work or help schools in search of answers to their problems.

We need to remove the destructive competition and replace this with a mutually supportive and integrated system that values the right model in the right circumstances.

Transparency on MAT bosses’ pay

While we’re at it, we need to get a grip on the debate about value for money. We’re in danger of creating an exaggerated debate about leadership pay in MATs that will be great for newspaper sales but will tell us little about true leadership pay levels or the value of the leaders in post.

Inevitably the focus goes to a very few high salaries that are not representative of the sector. I believe that we need to set our own moral compass on leadership pay. Education is a morally and ethically driven profession. This task should not be beyond us, nor should it be taken away from us because of a very tiny number of high earners.

It is encouraging to see schools minister Lord Agnew writing to the chairs of all governing bodies in England asking them to be more rigorous on these financial decisions. As he says, “CEO and senior pay should reflect the improvements they make to schools’ performance and how efficiently they run their trusts.” Rigorous should not mean cheap. Appropriate reward will recruit and retain the best. I am not arguing for a cap on pay or blind adherence to the false comparison to the prime minister’s salary. But we do need to set appropriate reference and structural points so that leadership pay is appropriate, fair and transparent.

My organisation, heads’ union NAHT, believes there should be a national framework that defines the roles and sets out the pay and conditions of all those employed in our national, publicly funded education system. The public has a right to be reassured that public funds are being used well.

That’s why I’m glad to see the NAO continuing to challenge the government on where and how it chooses to spend the education budget.

It is well known that school finances are at breaking point, pupil numbers are increasing and staff recruitment has fallen way behind what’s required. Some £745 million is a colossal amount of money to spend on structural changes to the system when real mutual support and integration will get us more bang for our buck.

I would much rather see a system where conversion was always entered into willingly. This is the only way for things to evolve successfully. But evolution takes years. Today’s students don’t have that long and should not be forced to wait whilst the system catches up with the government’s ideology.

If academy conversion is the right path to take, take it. If better support is available within your local authority, choose that. That’s real autonomy, isn’t it?

NAHT has lots of members in academies. We support them all, whether they are improving outcomes for children by converting or concerned that conversion will have no lasting impact.

I would echo the advice offered by Amyas Morse, head of the National Audit Office, who said that the DfE needs to set out its vision and clarify how it sees academies, maintained schools and local authorities working together to create a coherent and effective school system for children across all parts of the country.

If we’re going to make a difference for pupils, we have to realise that competition is not going work. We’re all on the same team. We have to work together.

Paul Whiteman is general secretary of the NAHT headteachers’ union. He tweets @PaulWhiteman6

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