AFS0068

Written evidence submitted by NASUWT

The NASUWT’s submission sets out the Union’s views on the key issues identified by the Committee in the terms of reference for the Inquiry The evidence is informed by the work of its representative committees and consultative structures made up of practising teachers and school leaders working in the education system in England.

The NASUWT is the largest union representing teachers and headteachers in the UK.

Executive Summary

• The Coalition Government’s academies and free school programmes reflect Ministers’ broader approach to public service reform, based on policies of marketisation and privatisation, that seek to create the circumstances within which public services can be made more amenable to sponsorship, delivery or ownership by profit-seeking organisations located within the commercial sector.
• There is no evidence that the Coalition Government’s academies and free schools programme have raised standards or narrowed achievement gaps. Evidence from other education systems suggests that in the longer term, these programmes will place standards and educational equity at risk.
• The process of academy conversion and free school creation lacks transparency, accountability and excludes important stakeholders from key decision-making processes. This lack of transparency raises important concerns about key elements of governance in academies and free schools including the operation of admissions practices, the awarding of contracts and the charging of parents for services and facilities provided by these settings.
• Forced academisation is anti-democratic, contravenes the wishes of parents and other local stakeholders, may result in adverse consequences for children and young people, compromises the rights of the workforce in the schools affected and undermines public confidence in the public education system.
• The DfE’s intended appointment of eight Commissioners, overseen by small boards of elected headteachers, to take forward the Coalition Government’s academies and free school programmes at a regional level, will exacerbate rather than address problems generated by the absence of an effective intermediate tier between the DfE and schools in the academies and free school sectors and will exclude local communities from effective participation in the governance of schools.
• Evidence indicates strongly that collaboration within academy chains is highly variable in nature and quality, tends not to take place beyond chain boundaries and is not subject to the provisions of robust, transparent and effective national frameworks.

Background and context

1. The issues highlighted in the remit for the Inquiry are wide ranging and merit further extended discussion and consideration.  However, within the confines of the 3,000 word limit for submissions, the Union is only able to give a brief overview of its views on the key areas of specific concern identified by the Committee.

2. However, at the outset, it is important to place the Coalition Government’s academies and free schools programmes into their appropriate broader policy context in order to permit effective examination of the issues identified in the Inquiry remit.

The Coalition Government’s academies and free schools programmes

3. The NASUWT is clear that the principal ambition of the Coalition Government’s academies and free schools programmes is to marketise and privatise the delivery of state education. This reflects Ministers’ broader approach to public service reform, based on policies of marketisation and privatisation, that seek to create the circumstances within which public services can be made more amenable to sponsorship, delivery or ownership by profit-seeking organisations located within the commercial sector.

4. The Union’s Report, Maintaining World Class Schools, passed unanimously by its 2013 Annual Conference, confirmed that the Union’s concerns about the academisation of the education system do not neglect the profound changes taking place in the education system that mean that polices in the future based simply on attempts to re-impose arrangements that may have existed in the past are unlikely to be credible or sufficiently reflective of pertaining circumstances.[1]

5. However, the negative aspects of the academies and free schools programmes, as they are currently constituted, invites reflection on the basis upon which any alternative programme might best be established. In its submission to the independent Pearson/RSA Academies Commission, the NASUWT identified ten tests that it believes any future strategy must fulfil in order to address the individual and collective needs, interests and aspirations of pupils, parents, the school workforce and local communities. These tests are:

i) Equality of opportunity – Reform programmes must seek to promote the development of an education system that ensures equality of opportunity in terms of admissions, provision and educational outcomes.

ii) Democratic accountability – Reform of the education system must be consistent with democratic values and must ensure that all publicly funded institutions are democratically accountable to the communities they serve.

iii) Value for money/transparency – Reform strategies must seek to secure effective transparency in relation to the way in which financial resources are allocated across the system and should ensure that all spending commitments are evaluated robustly and objectively against clear economic efficiency and value for money criteria.

iv) Raises standards – Reforms of the school system must be designed to ensure that all pupils are able to access high quality, engaging and relevant leaning opportunities that secure the highest possible levels of pupil progress and achievement.

v) Union recognition – Approaches to reform must ensure that workforce unions are properly represented to enable the perspectives of teachers, school leaders and other members of the wider school workforce to be taken into effective account in strategic planning and decision-making processes and to ensure that conditions are created that support and promote high quality teaching and learning.

vi) National pay and conditions of service – Reform programmes must support the operation of national pay and conditions frameworks that ensure that all pupils, regardless of the school they attend, receive their common entitlement to highly skilled, motivated and well trained teachers with terms and conditions that enable them to work effectively to raise standards.

vii) Viability – Approaches to reform must ensure that all schools and other relevant settings are viable and sustainable financially and are not funded on the basis of sectional or individual short term interests.

viii) A supportive and collaborative approach to community education – Reform programmes must secure the adoption and enhancement of collaborative approaches within and between institutions, noting, however, that collaboration does not preclude parents from exercising their legitimate rights to make informed choices about the schools or other relevant settings their children might attend.

ix) Rooted within the community – Any reform of the education system must ensure that schools are rooted within, not set apart from, their communities and represent the best of the values and aspirations of those communities.

x) Evidence based – Approaches to reform must be based on a genuine, considered use of evidence of educational practice, building on consultation between all stakeholders, including workforce unions.

6. It is evident that the current academies and free schools programmes fail to reflect these critical features of an effective and equitable state education system.

7. In particular, the NASUWT is concerned by the impact of the lack of transparency in academies and free schools in relation to key aspects of governance. Specifically, it is increasingly evident that this lack of transparency raises important concerns about key elements of governance in academies and free schools including in relation to the fair and equitable operation of admissions arrangements and the awarding of contracts for goods and services to private providers. Work undertaken by the Union further highlights issues relating to the extent to which academies and free schools impose additional and inappropriate financial expectations and requirements on pupils’ families and the effectiveness of existing systems for monitoring and holding schools to account for such practice. The NASUWT would welcome the opportunity to discuss these issues in more detail in through the submission of oral evidence.

8. The NASUWT urges the Committee to take account of the tests set out above in its evaluation of the implications of Coalition Government policy in relation to academies and free schools and in the development of its recommendations about the future structure and organisation of the education system in England.

Educational progress and achievement in the academies and free school sectors

9. The NASUWT notes the assertion by the Department for Education (DfE) that schools in the academies sector have been more effective than their maintained school counterparts in raising overall levels of achievement. Most recently, the DfE has claimed that 2012 national pupil performance data indicates that GCSE results increased five times more quickly in academies and free schools than in schools in the maintained sector.[2]

10. However, the interpretation placed on the official data by the DfE cannot be regarded as credible given that its comparison of overall GCSE achievement growth in academies and maintained schools fails to take effective account of generally lower prior pupil attainment levels in academies. Evaluation of pupil achievement across schools with comparable levels of prior pupil attainment on admission confirms that progress levels between academies and maintained schools are similar.[3]

11. The Committee will also note that most recent assessment of the academies programme by the National Audit Office (NAO) confirmed that it is not possible on the basis of the available evidence to conclude, as the DfE has done, that the expansion of the academies sector has resulted in an increase in levels of pupil attainment and progress or that, of itself, academisation has contributed towards a narrowing of achievement gaps.[4]

12. In respect of free schools, the Committee will be aware of claims by the DfE that inspection outcomes confirm that free schools are outperforming schools in the maintained sector.[5] However, evaluation of the Ofsted outcomes cited by the Coalition Government confirms that not only is the sample size of free school inspections used to justify this assertion too small to allow for meaningful comparisons between free schools and other forms of school but also that fewer maintained schools judged by Ofsted to be high performing have been inspected since September 2012 due to changes in Ofsted’s approach to the inspection of schools. As a result, attempts on this basis to draw comparisons between free schools and other types of school are invalid.

13. The NASUWT remains clear that evidence from other education systems in which school reforms have reflected the Coalition Government’s academies and free schools model indicates that in the longer term this approach to the restructuring of the state education system is likely to place standards and the narrowing educational inequalities at significant risk.

14. In Sweden, where free schools were first introduced, it has become increasingly evident they have served to undermine standards and that individual free schools have only been able to improve their results as a result of the selection of pupils with ‘better backgrounds’ than those who attended the institutions the free schools had replaced.[6] The form of competition used in the Swedish free school model has also worked to undermine parental confidence in the equity and quality of the education system.[7]

15. The weight of evidence further confirms that the Charter School movement in the United States, another significant influence on the Coalition Government’s free schools and academies programme, has failed to raise standards or, in respect of a significant number of Charter Schools, address inequalities given the relative ineffectiveness of the schools for pupils with relatively low prior attainment levels.[8]

16. The NASUWT is therefore clear that because the academies and free school programmes of the Coalition Government fail to reflect the principles set out elsewhere in this evidence, the ability of the state education system to raise standards and narrow achievement gaps will be compromised in the absence of a significant reconsideration by the DfE of the basis upon which its current approach to reform of school structures is based.

The process for establishing free schools and academies

17. The Committee will be aware of the longstanding concerns of the NASUWT about the lack of transparency and accountability of the processes surrounding academy conversion and the creation of free schools. Despite the legal responsibilities of governing bodies to take key decisions over the governance and organisation of schools, some headteachers of maintained schools have sought to take forward academy conversion without reference to governing bodies or without wider consultation with staff, parents and representatives of the local community

18. The decision to become an academy school is a highly significant and irreversible step for any school. It has profound implications for children and young people, governors, parents, the local community and staff. It is a decision requiring particularly careful thought and consideration, access to detailed and accurate information about what the change of status will mean in practice over the longer term as well as a fair and open consultation process. It is therefore entirely unacceptable that schools can transition to academy status in breach of their legal requirements in respect of school governing bodies or the views of wider stakeholders.

19. The NASUWT notes that the Committee has given attention previously to the process of ‘forced academisation’, in which schools deemed to be underperforming or at risk of failure are required to adopt academy status. As the report of the independent Pearson/RSA Academies Commission has made clear, this form of academisation is fundamentally antithetical to the pursuit of quality public education for all. It is anti-democratic, contravenes the wishes of parents and other local stakeholders, may result in adverse consequences for children and young people, compromises the rights of the workforce in the schools affected and undermines public confidence in public education.[9]

20. It is also important to recognise that there is no requirement on proposers to conduct a public consultation where they intend to establish a free school, highlighting a significant and additional democratic deficit in the Coalition Government’s school reform programme. Local communities, local authorities and parents are therefore disenfranchised from the free school establishment process and any involvement they may have is subject to the discretion of free school proposers. This is an especially important consideration in light of the promotion by the Coalition Government of the use for free schools of unfit sites and buildings and the limitations placed by the Coalition Government on the power of local communities to challenge such practices through the planning system.

21. Consideration of arrangements for the establishment of free schools also invites reflection on the critical role of state schools in promoting social cohesion. The promotion of social cohesion is at the heart of public service provision. Free schools are not premised on the basis of making a meaningful contribution to the promotion of social cohesion. They are deliberately established to stand in isolation from the local authority family of schools. There is therefore genuine potential for them to lead to parents seeking segregated schools, as has happened in other education systems where free school models have become established.

22. The Committee will also be aware that evidence from the NAO’s recent review of the free schools programme calls into serious question the value for money secured by public expenditure on free schools and the extent to which the programme has the capacity to play an effective role in meeting primary pupil place needs in areas of severe of high shortage.[10]

The role of the Secretary of State in intervening in and supporting failing academies

23. Issues relating to the ways in which schools can be supported to sustain and enhance their performance and the quality and equity of educational opportunities made available to learners are fundamental to the concerns the NASUWT has identified in relation to the Coalition Government’s academies programme. It is particularly important to recognise that there has, to date, been no formal, local-level intermediate tier between these schools and central Government.

24. An increasingly academised system will therefore compromise the ability of the education system to benefit from the economic, strategic and democratic functions that an effective intermediate tier is able to secure, all of which work to ensure that standards are maintained and enhanced and that relevant stakeholders can have access to effective arrangements through which they can engage with the work of local schools.

25. The establishment of effective intermediate tiers is a well-established feature of education systems generally regarded as high-performing or rapidly improving. No education system regarded as effective by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) or in any credible international comparative studies adopts an approach to local oversight and management of the education system on a comparable basis to that in place currently in England for academies and free schools.

26. The Committee will have noted the intention of the DfE to appoint eight regional school Commissioners with wide ranging powers over the approval of academy applications, the monitoring and oversight of academy performance and the operations of academy sponsors. The DfE proposes that the work of each regional Commissioner will be overseen by a small board of local headteachers elected by other headteachers within their region.[11]

27. This change in policy, while signifying the Coalition Government’s recognition of the failure of the DfE-led scrutiny and oversight model for academies and free schools, will serve to compound rather than address the issues that have arisen through the absence of an effective intermediate tier.

28. Specifically, the proposals represent an additional subversion of local democratic processes and will further disenfranchise local communities in relation to the management and governance of the state funded education system. It is a matter of particular concern that the proposed headteacher boards will represent the principal accountability line for regional Commissioners, given that these headteachers will not, in turn, be accountable to teachers and members of the wider school workforce, parents, pupils or community stakeholders. The risks of profound conflicts of interest between the members of headteacher boards and regional Commissioners in relation to decisions that might impact on the schools of board members are evident and highly concerning. It should also be noted that that the DfE is clear that the introduction of role of the Commissioner should not be regarded as an attempt to establish an intermediate tier.[12]

29. In light of the absence of any public consultation prior to the DfE taking steps to implement its regional Commissioner proposals and their potentially negative implications of the effectiveness and integrity of arrangements for the oversight of academies and free schools, the Committee should recommend to the DfE that the appointment of regional Commissioners and boards must be suspended until they have been subject to a meaningful process of public consultation.

The alternatives to sponsored academy status that might be offered to primary schools perceived as underperforming

30. Given the considerations set out in this evidence, it is clear that the use of sponsored academy status to seek to address perceived problems of underperformance in any school, including those in the primary sector, is inappropriate.

31. In the context of educational standards, concerns about the efficacy and effectiveness of the Coalition Government’s academies programme relate to the extent to which it seeks to promote competition rather than collaboration between schools and the role that it envisages that academies and free schools will have in establishing a system constituted on this basis. It should be noted in this context that the most recent outcomes of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) study have confirmed that competition between education providers does not, of itself, raise standards.[13]

32. The NASUWT notes the assertion of the Coalition Government that the development of chains of sponsored academies promotes collaboration between schools within chains. However, evidence indicates strongly that collaboration within academy chains is highly variable in nature and quality, tends not to take place beyond chain boundaries and is not subject to the provisions of robust, transparent and effective national frameworks, such as those evident under the previous Government in relation to, for example, 14-19 consortia or behaviour and attendance partnerships.[14]

33. As noted above, the NASUWT recognises that to seek to return to previous models of school governance and organisation may not be appropriate in an increasingly diverse state education system. Local councils can and should continue to have a vital role in public education, but where relations or structures have broken down, alternatives will be needed that are democratically rooted. Any new strategic solutions must secure democratic engagement and representation in the provision of public education.[15]

34. In practical terms, this imperative means securing approaches to school oversight, management and governance that reflect the principles set out in this evidence. An important exemplar of the application of these principles is the work of the Schools Co-operative Society (SCS) to promote the principles and values of public education in a context of increasing diversity of provision. The Union believes that, applying the framework of cooperation and the principles of mutualism, it is possible to secure diversity and a progressive educational ethos within schools without risk to the principles and values of public education. The effectiveness of this approach is demonstrated with reference to the ongoing work of the SCS in supporting school improvement in a wide range of contexts and circumstances and represents an important model for the development of alternative approaches to sustaining and enhancing further the quality of educational provision in state funded schools.

December 2013

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