Education: Academies and Free Schools

Baroness Perry of Southwark Excerpts

Monday 4th February 2013 Lords Chamber

Asked By

[Baroness Perry of Southwark]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their assessment of the contribution of academies and free schools to educational provision in the United Kingdom.

[Baroness Perry of Southwark]

My Lords, I welcome this opportunity to address the contribution of academies and free schools to our national education provision. I look forward to the summing up of this short debate by my noble friend the Minister, as this is the first opportunity for him to make a substantial speech in this House. I begin by declaring an interest as the unpaid chair of a commission on academies and free schools for the London Borough of Wandsworth. The commission has met with many potential academy sponsors and free school providers, and I for one have been often inspired by the enthusiasm, expertise and deep commitment of those who seek to change the life chances of young people.

We are witnessing a revolution—the most important revolution in education for many decades. Beginning with the vision in the previous Administration of the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, who I am pleased to see in his place, already more than half the secondary schools in the country have become academies. Most are converter academies by the choice of their governing bodies, and some are sponsored academies where schools failing to raise the performance of their pupils have, with the guidance and help of a sponsor, been made into academies where pupil success has followed. Such schools are often located in the most deprived and difficult areas, with generations of failure behind them. There are now 2,673 academies in England and 80 free schools are already open with more than 100 in the pipeline for this year.

Now primary schools are becoming academies and primary free schools are being established. There is an urgent need for action at this level. The DfE reports that 1,400 primary schools are below the minimum floor standard—800 of these for at least three years. This means that several thousand pupils are leaving the primary phase having failed to achieve even a minimum standard in basic English and maths. The weakest 200 of these schools have already become academies in this academic year and many more will follow. We rejoice to find that, since becoming academies, more than 40 of these primary schools have completely eliminated the gap in attainment between the children of the poorest and richest families.

Free schools, including the excellent university technical colleges, have allowed communities of parents, teachers, local people and a range of approved sponsors to bring their commitment and determination to set up new schools, to raise standards of teaching and to lift aspirations in places where all too often only acceptance of defeat and a lack of ambition had been before. Many bring innovative and exciting new ideas into educational provision, offering different and challenging forms of education which meet the special interests and needs of local children in ways no local authority would be able or likely to offer.

The providers of free schools are diverse. So far, 59 have been groups of teachers, existing schools or other educational organisations. This is indeed a policy endorsement by the professionals in education. Some 45 have come from parent groups; community, religious and local groups; and charities. Again, this is endorsement of the policy by the people who are most concerned and most likely to be the best judges of its success.

Not all academies have been or will be a total success, of course, although the overwhelming majority have achieved more than even their supporters would have dreamed. The British cup-half-empty media have seized on the occasional academy where standards have not been spectacular, although even these have often achieved more than their predecessor, but no one who truly cares about children and young people can fail to celebrate the life-changing opportunities which academies and free schools have already given to tens of thousands of young people who are lucky enough to attend them.

Some basic statistics demonstrate what great gifts have been given to young people by this programme. Overall, pupils in sponsored academies have increased their achievements by five times the national average for maintained schools. Years of failure in some local authority areas have been turned into success. My noble friend Lord Harris, in the wonderful work he has done in creating successful academies, can be proud of his Bermondsey academy, for example, where, with more than two-thirds of pupils receiving free school meals, 62%,—almost twice the national average—have achieved five A* to C grades in their GCSEs. However, statistics can only invite us to reflect on what this means in terms of young people whose lives have been turned around and whose aspirations have been raised beyond anything their predecessors had experienced.

Why do academies and free schools achieve where local authorities had failed? The answer is freedom. Academies are free from local authority control, which has not always been benign. They are free to deliver the curriculum which fits the needs of their pupils, not some centrally determined formula. However, their offering must be “broad and balanced”, and must include English, maths, science and religious education. They are free to set pay and conditions for their staff, enabling them to reward hard work and success, and to attract the best and brightest teachers. They are also free to determine the length of time pupils spend in school daily and termly: their curriculum is not subject to the time restraints which too often prevent local authority schools expanding their offerings to follow the needs and interests of their pupils.

Most importantly, these schools offer professional freedom to the head and teachers. Professional judgment always trumps bureaucratic prescription. Teachers really do know best. For the past 20 years or so we have cramped professionals—not only in education—with regulation, prescription, inspection, targets and league tables. None of this has worked to raise real standards. Indeed, we have been in danger of de-professionalising the best-ever generation of teachers. The system has forced them to teach to the requirements imposed from outside instead of to their own professional judgment. Removing these external constraints has resulted largely in the great success of academies and free schools: the proof is in the results.

Although the evidence is that the longer schools have enjoyed their academy and free school status, the greater their improvement, some have rightly expressed concern about how we can ensure that these standards are maintained in the longer term, especially when many of these schools will be exempt from regular inspection. It is my profound belief that the best form of accountability begins with the accountability of the individual to their own professional standards. I am however greatly reassured by the initiatives which have arisen voluntarily and spontaneously within the academies and free schools themselves. Many have formed “chains”, which are looser perhaps than a strict federation, although enjoying many of the financial and quality benefits of shared central services and shared governance, which others have adopted.

Whether they are a federation or a chain, these associations are proving to be a far better guardian of quality than many of the external official bodies which control community schools. The strong and successful schools in the chain offer support and help to their newer developing partners. This model is now widely adopted and provides excellent advantages for quality control. Again, it is a product of leaving the professionals to determine their own quality assurance. It will be important to ensure, however, that the chains do not become substitute local authorities with power again drifting away from the individual school—that “living cell of the body educational”, as it has been called.

In the Harris group, we see an outstanding model of this way of working. The Harris Federation has set up a complete system of raising teaching quality: first, in initial training, as a group of designated training schools, and then in offering a careful programme of teacher development, which takes the average teacher, through several steps, to excellence. The successful heads in the group are also involved in a leadership development programme for those with leadership potential, to ensure a supply of outstanding heads for the future. I cannot but feel that this is a more trustworthy and sustainable pattern for ensuring quality than an occasional visit from an Ofsted inspector with limited scope for development initiatives.

In 2010, my right honourable friend Michael Gove said:

“Teachers, not politicians, know best how to run schools”.

It has taken courage to put that belief into practice but the thousands of teachers, parents and young people who have benefited from that courage all say “thank you”.