Education and Adoption Bill

Suella Braverman Excerpts

Wednesday 16th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gibb]

Of course the RSCs have been established only recently, and already 60% of all secondary schools in the country have become academies and an increasing number of primary schools are now academies. The transformation of schools from the maintained sector into academisation has been phenomenally rapid. We are now moving a step further forward to ensuring that we do not just tackle failing schools. If this Bill gets through this House—I hope the hon. Gentleman will support it this evening—any failing school, including any school in his constituency that is in special measures, will automatically become an academy, have new leadership and have new sponsorship, driving forward higher standards in that school. He should be supporting the measure.

Having said that, academisation will not always be the default solution for coasting schools, because where it is clear that the existing leadership does have the capacity to improve, they will be given the support and backing to do just that. But having the discretion to make an academy order is important, even for coasting schools, as a backstop provision.

I could cite many examples where becoming a sponsored academy has helped to improve academic standards, but let me highlight just one. In January 2014, Our Lady and St Bede Roman Catholic secondary school in Stockton-on-Tees was judged as requiring improvement by Ofsted. It became an academy sponsored by the Carmel Education Trust. In 2014, only 54% of pupils achieved five or more A* to C GCSEs including English and maths. Under the new sponsorship the headteacher has reported that that figure has risen to 72% this year; which is an increase on last year of 18 percentage points in just 12 months.

[Suella Fernandes (Fareham) (Con)]

I am grateful to the Minister for his work in Committee, where I served, alongside other colleagues in the House. Does he agree that we see that the Opposition’s challenge that this is not an evidence-based policy simply does not stack up when we look at the example he has cited and at academy sponsor trusts such as REAch2, Applegarth, STEP Academy Trust and WISE Academies, which have achieved astonishing turnarounds in a short time? Is this policy not just speeding up what works best?

[Mr Gibb]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right about that, and I was grateful for her involvement in, and contribution to, our deliberations in Committee. She knows what she is talking about, because she is chair at an extraordinary academy trust, the Michaela community school in Wembley, which was established by the formidable Katherine Birbalsingh. It is now into its second year and I recommend a visit to that school to any hon. Member who is interested in education. They will see a school that serves one of the most deprived parts of London delivering education of a quality that will astonish them. It is an astonishingly good school, and I am looking forward to its first set of GCSE results in three or four years’ time.