School Accountability and Intervention

Andrew Cooper Excerpts

Monday 3rd February 2025 Commons Chamber

[Catherine McKinnell]

I encourage the teachers mentioned by the hon. Lady to feed into the consultation. Let me allay some of their concerns. Although how it conducts its consultations and reports on its inspections is for Ofsted, as a Department we are very focused on creating a self-improving system of collaboration, using the new report cards to identify exemplary practice and share that more widely. That will identify where support is required and encourage schools to work in collaboratively to deliver it. RISE teams will bolster that targeted approach, particularly for stuck schools, which we know have been ignored for far too long. I hope that the teachers she referenced will feel more confident about the system, and I encourage them to respond to the consultation.

[Andrew Cooper (Mid Cheshire) (Lab)]

The laser focus on stuck schools will be incredibly important for the life chances of children who have been failed for too long. I am pleased that the Government are putting their money where their mouth is, with up to £100,000 for each school. Ofsted research makes the point that in some unstuck schools, the role of MATs in raising expectations and developing curriculum subject expertise has been critical, but in others that have remained stuck, the MATs have not been effective and are not providing the right quality support. Will the Minister say more about how RISE teams can work with MATs to improve the support that they offer?

[Catherine McKinnell]

Children get only one childhood, so it matters deeply that they get to go to a great school while they are still children, which is why we are determined to deliver faster improvement to the schools that need it. While academisation has been successful in many places, it can be a slow process, and not all schools can be matched up with strong trusts, which is why we will utilise the RISE teams to support schools to work together, drive improvement and create that whole-system reform that we know children need to see.