Education: Academies and Free Schools

Lord Bishop of Bath and Wells Excerpts

Monday 4th February 2013 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Bath and Wells]

I, too, thank my mentor, the noble Baroness, Lady Perry, for this debate. I offer my remarks particularly, but not exclusively, in relation to church schools. There are 140 primary and 97 secondary Church of England academies. Although that makes the Church of England the largest provider of academies, it still represents only 3% of our primary and 53% of our secondary schools. Within my own diocese, some 70% of secondary schools as a whole have moved to academy status, and that is quite remarkable. In respect of academies, two of our schools—one Church of England, one ecumenical—were indeed ground breakers. In the early days of academies, lack of understanding by the Department for Education of church school ownership and trusteeship led to too much problem solving on the hoof once the legislation had been passed.

Our concern is that, with so much attention and energy being devoted to this ideology about school structures, the risk is that we divert our attention from the needs of the vast majority of children in our schools, especially in the primary phase. We need to frame our debate as being about the effectiveness of schools and the ways in which to achieve greater levels of collaboration and effective partnerships that result in more good and outstanding schools, irrespective of their status as academies or maintained schools. For example, in Southwark diocese, 88% and, in Liverpool diocese, 85% of Church of England schools are rated as good or outstanding by Ofsted, with only a handful of those schools being academies. So the need to ensure that we learn the lessons of what makes for effective provision without limiting the debate to academies and free schools continues to matter a great deal.

In April, the work of the multi-academy trusts comes on stream. We welcome the Department for Education’s listening mode and are grateful for the sponsor capacity grant. However, it is regrettable that the grant is not really sufficient to fund adequately sponsored conversion. I hope that the Government take a look at that. Also, for many schools, anxiety has been increased as documentation is frequently changed at short notice, adding significantly and unnecessarily to work loads. As the local authorities gradually disappear and the academies and free schools have an increasing influence, if they are to succeed and if we are to achieve and ensure the quality that we are looking for, as the Government and all of us wish, it remains important that the department talks at a national and diocesan level with church schools and that both plan ahead and resource more effectively.

The Church of England approach in dioceses across the country is to recognise the need for real structural collaborations to bring about transformation in standards, resulting in effectiveness of schools. For many, this now includes setting up multi-academy trusts, but in doing so we must continue to find a way for schools of all categories to join the same MAT so that the expertise and capacities in our good and outstanding schools can be used for the benefit of weaker schools. I hope that Ministers continue to work with Church of England officials to enable that to happen.

Free schools often offer a good way in which to introduce new providers into the system and bring fresh ideas to the needs of the community, but there is a need to ensure that limited resources are focused on the need to provide much-needed pupil places in areas of population growth where there is a real lack of capacity rather than diverting resources to establish new schools in areas where there is no pressure for extra places.

I draw to the Minister’s attention the fact that there remains a continuing lack of engagement with BME communities in the free schools programme, particularly those that have been acutely disadvantaged in education, such as the African, Caribbean and Pakistani communities. Some such communities are attempting to seize the pre-school programmes as an opportunity to improve educational outcomes for BME and other pupils, but they face barriers to success. Other such communities remain largely unaware of the programme, and it is important that the Department for Education gives attention to the engagement of such underrepresented communities. Many free schools being established with the aim of improving education in deprived urban areas are enrolling people from disadvantaged backgrounds at much lower rates than other local schools. Barriers linked to financial expertise, financial resources and social capital all have implications in relation to this.