Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make it her policy to require Ofsted to make regular visits within three months to all schools that have been placed in special measures regardless of whether they have not changed their governance structure.

The Secretary of State has a duty to make an academy order for all local authority maintained schools that are judged by Ofsted to be inadequate. If an academy is judged to be inadequate, the Secretary of State has the power to transfer it to a stronger academy trust. In both cases, these academies will generally be inspected as new schools in their third year of operation.

We believe it is right in these cases to allow the new academy trust the opportunity to turnaround what was a previously failing school before it is inspected by Ofsted.

However, Ofsted will inspect schools at any time where information that they hold or receive causes sufficient concern.