Academy trusts have been central to UK government vision for schools for years – but that may be changing

The transformation of a local authority school into an academy is supposed to lead to school improvement. This seemed to be the case at Mossbourne Victoria Park academy in Hackney, at least in terms of its results and good-behaviour policies.

But the school has also recently received criticism from parents, who – as reported in the Observer – have described the way staff treat pupils as “scary” and as “psychological abuse”.

In response, the Mossbourne Federation told the Observer: “We were saddened to read these accounts as we do not recognise the characterisation of the school. While we have high expectations of behaviour and attitudes to learning, we are very proud of being a diverse and inclusive trust, in which children and young people thrive and go on to secure outstanding results.

"We take any issues raised by parents seriously and investigate them fully. We have also had external reviews by Ofsted and the local authority – in none of these were any concerns raised.”

Academies are state-funded schools in England that are independent of local authorities and funded by the central government. The last Labour government created the first academies in 2002 to give intensive support to some struggling schools by linking them to more successful schools.

Supporters of turning schools into academies argue that academies and the trusts that run them raise standards. Opponents argue that academies lack accountability and children can suffer if they adopt overly strict behaviour and teaching policies.

When Labour left office in 2010, there were around 200 individual academies. When they returned to government, they inherited a system with over 10,000, the result of a Conservative approach that made academy trusts a central pillar of education policy.

Many of these schools are academies by choice. Others were forced to become academies following unsatisfactory inspections. Most are now part of multi-academy trusts. Local authorities are responsible for the remaining schools that did not become academies.

Multi-academy trusts

Multi-academy trusts vary in size. Most have two to nine schools. The biggest has 90. Even ones of a similar size can be very different. A primary-only trust has different issues than ones that mix primary, secondary and alternative provision schools.

Multi-academy trusts also vary a lot in how schools are run. In some trusts, all schools have the same branding, uniform, policies and curriculum. In others, headteachers make more decisions. Some are local, some regional and some national. So the academy system is complex.

This complexity is one reason we don’t know if schools run as academies or by local authorities are better for pupil outcomes. Overall, there seems to be little difference.

But looking at some important issues, there are positives for pupils and teachers who belong to local authority schools. Pupils with the most additional needs are more likely to have their needs spotted in local authority schools than in academies.

Teachers tend to be paid less in academies, though this may be because of higher levels of teacher turnover. But that itself suggests teachers working for academies with compliance cultures may have less job satisfaction, and this is adding to poor teacher retention in the profession.

On the other hand, some trusts are leading the way in innovating to improve teachers’ working conditions. Trusts also vary a lot in how well they do on other important issues. Some academies close the gaps between outcomes of disadvantaged children and their peers, and others seem to widen the gap.

To manage academies, the previous government introduced a regional structure and introduced criteria for trust quality. These criteria were then used to decide if a trust was good enough to expand, including taking over schools forced to become academies.

But the Department for Education’s views on what makes a strong trust and those of parents can be very different.

The potential for change

Given this complexity and the lack of money to fund major changes, it wasn’t surprising that Labour signalled before the election it wasn’t interested in large-scale reform. However, it did indicate that it would end favouring academies over local authority schools.

Since the election, what this means in practice has started to take shape. Extra funding to support trust expansion has been cut, but trust leaders are involved in conducting the government’s curriculum review.

The secretary of state didn’t overturn a forced academisation happening despite lobbying by the local Labour MP, but has also said that she is open to considering academies rejoining local authorities.

There will be some changes. Multi-academy trusts are in line for being inspected by Ofsted as a whole trust. Long-running concerns about inflated pay for trust leaders may finally be addressed.

New regional school improvement teams may end a two-tier system of support that favours academies. These new teams will offer support to all types of schools and support is not linked to Ofsted grades.

Given other more pressing priorities like the curriculum, special educational needs and teacher retention, Labour’s focus on managing the system they inherited rather than changing it is understandable. But it is likely to be tested by those same priorities. This is because the current system creates barriers to addressing them.

For example, curriculum reform will need subject-focused professional development. I found in recent research with colleagues on secondary maths practice that if academy trust policies are overly rigid, subject leaders lack autonomy.

The new government is committed to improving education for children with special educational needs and disabilities, and addressing young people’s mental health. This may mean it will need to intervene or create new guidelines to ensure all academies are inclusive and take a balanced approach to behaviour.

There will also be continuing pressure on government funding for education. Given this, the additional costs of the academy trust model – where highly paid central trust roles compare with a relatively more efficient local authority model – may not be sustainable. That is on top of the additional civil servants needed to run a complex system.

Additionally, when the number of pupils falls due to demographic changes, local authorities, multi-academy trusts and central government will need to manage school closures. This will only heighten concerns about the lack of parents’ voice in education. These pressures mean at some point the system will need reforming.

Mark Boylan receives funding from the Department for Education and the Education Endowment Foundation.