Oral evidence: Academies and free schools, HC 981Wednesday 9 April 2014

Oral evidence, 9 April 2014.

Witnesses

Sue Higgins, Executive Leader, National Audit Office, Anastasia de Waal, Director of Family and Education, Civitas, and Nick Weller, Chair, Independent Academies Association and Executive Principal, Dixons Academies, gave evidence.

Chair

Good morning, and welcome. Thank you for coming along to give evidence to us today. The Department for Education appears to be concerned about the “political ramifications of any more free schools being judged inadequate”. Are they right to be concerned that the free school programme could be discredited by problems in a small number of schools?

Anastasia de Waal

I think generally, whether we are talking about free schools or academies, there has been an in-built sense of not predicting failure. That has been an inherent difficulty. Academies were actually the prime example of this—there was no infrastructure for failing academies—and a similar scenario is happening for free schools. Obviously, in terms of political vulnerability on the concept of the free school, it is very much this Government’s project and so it is a much higher risk in that sense politically. There is a sense that a lot is being done behind the scenes to protect any indication of there being failure—a mistake, to my mind, because if the idea is a project of innovation and trying new things in the education system, then clearly it is preferable to be very transparent about that and honest about teething issues, which is what I think we have seen, not just in the case of a new form of working with academies, but particularly when it comes to free schools. Yes, I think that there is a lot of political risk, but I must say that a lot of that has been taken on by the Government and is something that really should not have been part of the picture when they were establishing the parameters of what might happen with these new structures.

Chair

So they were not really straightforward enough with the risks. It is difficult, because, of course, the child has only one chance to be educated—that is true—but, on the other hand, a leaden system with no innovation that lets down far too many is also not a safe bet. Do you think that the Government somehow failed in their narrative to show that actually these, in some cases, experiments but certainly innovations are part and parcel of raising standards for children, and that more children will succeed if we have them than if we do not? But there is a trade-off.

Anastasia de Waal

Yes. There is a fine balance between—well, in fact it is not a fine balance; that is rather the point. We want innovation and schools to be able to do more and be more flexible in what they do to respond to the needs of the pupils that they have in their particular cohort. Having said that, something like an entirely new structure, which is by its very nature set up on risk-taking premises—setting up schools that are not done by professionals, which has not been done before in this country, or anywhere really; the model is different from abroad—is a risk. Yes, the Government has not been honest enough about the fact that it is taking risks on that. If it had said, “What we are doing is in the interests of trying to promote new structures in the system and trying to innovate for future success there will be some casualties”—I don’t think there has been enough rhetoric around that possibility. Where we have seen greater autonomy in academies, it has been a safer model, in the sense that there have been clearer parameters about what can happen, but also we are talking about schools that are not being set up in the same, rather informal, mechanisms that we have seen with free schools.

Nick Weller

Part of this is the amount of attention that is given to the failing end of the market. In the Dixons group, we have just got the first secondary free school that was judged outstanding, and we found it very difficult to attract any press attention to that. As I said to the head, the only way he could have guaranteed that was to secure special measures instead. There is some truth in the suggestion that the Government should have been more up front about it being experimental. Also, there are adjustments that could be made to the approval of free schools: for example, perhaps the initial funding agreement should be an interim one; a school is inspected after two years or within its second year, and after a clear inspection it might get a final agreement signed off, and, if it proved to be RI or worse, other action could then be taken. There are things that the Government could do to hold these schools more to account more quickly. Some of the later funding agreements allow them to intervene in a more timely fashion than the original ones.

Chair

How do we get the balance right? One criticism is that head teachers who have taken over a failing school and taken one of the toughest challenges in the toughest areas are held to account a little too quickly, some would argue, and you need to give them time to turn it round, especially if you want to attract the very people you need to do that job.

Nick Weller

For a sponsored academy that is true. With the start-up school it is a very different case. I think you probably can tell within two years whether that school is set on the road to success.

Sue Higgins

Our recent free schools report recognised that the policy had been implemented at speed and gave credit to that but saw, as the system matures, that the oversight and the support given to the schools needs to improve. In our report 25 free schools have had Ofsted inspections at October 2013: four were judged to be outstanding, 14 good, five requiring improvement, and two inadequate, and one of those—Discovery—has recently closed. The PAC reports have not been issued yet, but they contain recommendations that we know the Department will take forward to improve the oversight. In terms of fraud—there was reference to that in the last session—we know that there are some high-profile concerns. We know of one arrest and a police investigation. Again, though, that is a relatively small proportion of the overall system. We expect that—

Chair

So the press coverage suggesting that there is a peculiar problem around financial mismanagement within free schools—is that to misunderstand or misrepresent the data?

Sue Higgins

Fraud is not expected. It is not acceptable. It is illegal if proven. The Audit Commission data for 2012-13 records 191 cases of fraud in maintained schools, so by comparison it is a very small proportion, potentially, of free schools and certainly of maintained schools.

Chair

But is it a higher proportion of free schools than of maintained schools in general?

Sue Higgins

At the moment, no, it is not.

Nick Weller

On standards, free schools are already outperforming half of all local authorities, if you look at the HMCI league table and they all are relatively new providers, so that is quite impressive.

Chair

Nick, is it not partly your job to help to communicate that? Why are you not doing a better job of getting the press to recognise this outstanding educational achievement?

Nick Weller

That is very true, but even where you get a real success like we had in Dixons recently, it is sometimes difficult to attract the level of attention that failure attracts.

Mr Ward

On the funding agreements and the seven years’ notice, first, should there be a limited period of time, and if so, is seven years about right? How do you feel?

Nick Weller

Seven years goes all the way back to the CTCs and it is about a generation of children passing through a school, so in that sense it is a sensible time limit. The DfE has taken more powers of intervention where schools fail, and I think that is probably the answer to that question, rather than time-limited funding agreements. Failure should trigger other processes.

Mr Ward

We found in America that the charter was signed for a five-year period, but there were annual reviews of performance. It would never be allowed to get to five years if after three or four there was evidence of failure, and there were high levels of closures. We learned that closure was very difficult to do the first time, but once the message got through that they were prepared to close schools, the opposition was much easier to deal with.

Anastasia de Waal

To my mind, the problem is less about the period—the seven years is almost irrelevant, it seems. It is more about the process and who is involved in deciding whether the school is failing. There needs to be more Ofsted involvement. It seems odd that Ofsted is essentially removed from the equation, and that this is between the academy or the other school and the Department. It is also about general tracking. If we are talking about, as you were saying, a generation being able to go through schooling, in principle that is a worry; it is a very long time to wait to find failure. There needs to be a system where there is a much more timely indication of whether schools are performing. Obviously, that is going to come through Ofsted; therefore, it seems much more effective and efficient if Ofsted is involved in that process rather than it being something being separated out between the Department and the academy.

Mr Ward

We found that at state level—Louisiana for instance were involved—they were the ones looking at the financial accountability of the charter schools but also the academic performance. So what about local authorities? Would they have a role?

Anastasia de Waal

I feel the removal of local authorities from the equation is one of the biggest problems. That is why we have so few mechanisms and recourses to address whether it is failure or to do with provision around finances. It is clear that local authorities should be involved both in the assessments and with the involvement of Ofsted around performance. In terms of licensing, it goes back to identifying whether there is a need for free schools as much as whether an academy, working with its sponsor or more generally, is functioning well. I do think we need a role for local authorities. Yes, it is not perfect at the moment, but it seems like it is throwing the baby out with the bathwater to try to recreate other and actually problematic, in the sense of there not being a clear picture for parents, mechanisms that are very piecemeal.

Mr Ward

The next question is about licensing, but Nick were you shaking your head then?

Nick Weller

I was. The first sponsored academy we took over was Rhodesway in Bradford. You are probably familiar with it.

Mr Ward

Should I declare an interest? My son, albeit for a short time, works in that school, not on the academic staff.

Nick Weller

It is now Dixons Allerton and a very different school. For 15 years it was on the slide. It was in special measures for the longest time of any school I think in the country from 2002, all the way through to its re-inspection in 2006. I think there is no evidence that local authorities would have that impact. I think we have got to focus much more on building a school-led system with higher accountability and a more robust attitude to who can sponsor academies and what happens when things go wrong and taking timely action, on the basis of Ofsted reports.

Mr Ward

Albeit that was at a time when the local authority itself was in special measures as a result of an Ofsted inspection.

Nick Weller

Indeed. It is a much better place now, but then it has a school-led system in the Bradford Partnership, which we might touch on later.

Mr Ward

There was a remarkable portfolio of education that introduced some of those measures at the time, I seem to recall.

Sue Higgins

We cannot express a view on seven years, but the Education Funding Agency has a role to play and I have not heard it mentioned to date. It is worth noting that it has a formal role on governance and finances. Certainly, it receives the accounts each year from the external auditors of the schools and will look for breaches in the funding agreement and sometimes issue financial notices to improve.

Mr Ward

It is not one of my questions to you but I might not get the chance again. It is not covered in the questions but one of the things we saw was paid-for bussing in Massachusetts and Louisiana of children going to the charter schools, with the intention of ensuring that there was a mixed social and economic balance in the schools. Is there anything to support that, in your view?

Nick Weller

In five of the Dixons schools in Bradford we have a city-wide intake, as you know, in an attempt to get away from the mono-ethnic, mono-cultural provision that characterised much of Bradford’s inner-city education. In certain circumstances, in certain cities and in certain communities, a more city-wide approach can be a great help.

Anastasia de Waal

It is a conundrum, because on the one hand, you want to avoid ghettoisation, which we know can happen in particular communities. That does the pupils a disservice because of the lack of diversity, and practical issues, such as English as a second language, can be exacerbated. On the other hand, we know that there is a strong and understandable appetite for a community school and the feeling that your locality is located by where you go to school. There are probably good case-by-case examples of where one is more successful than the other in terms of the model, and that is probably how it should be looked at. In other words, I do not think that either model should be written off.

Chair

Sue, which are more effectively governed from the point of view of financial oversight: academies or maintained schools?

Sue Higgins

The regimes are completely different. The free school/academy regime is set up to be more light touch. That is the policy intent. I am afraid it is too early to conclude how effective that arrangement is. We believe that light-touch regimes can be made to work, and we can certainly see that after the initial focus on delivering the policy implementation, the Department is considering—

Chair

But your job is to look at the framework for such things. Is the framework for the financial oversight of academies comparable with, superior to, or inferior to that of maintained schools in general, right now? Can you tell parents?

Sue Higgins

They are different.

Chair

You said that. Parents just want to know. Given the press reports and the public concern, is the financial oversight of academies fit for purpose? It is your job, is it not? Is the financial oversight of maintained schools fit for purpose? Is there any way of giving us some indication, right now, of the relative quality of those different systems of oversight?

Sue Higgins

We are doing a study at the moment, looking at comparing the two. We have not done that piece of work until now, and that will be reporting to the PAC in due course. That said, the indicators of things going wrong are breaches of the financial agreement, fraud and error, and earlier I gave you some statistics about how the maintained sector compares. At this point, there is no statistical difference that would highlight any immediate concerns, but we are in the early stages. That is why we are doing the study, and that is why we will report to the PAC, but we cannot be conclusive.

Chair

Thank you. Nick?

Nick Weller

Obviously, things need to be properly studied, but one early indication has been the number of press stories covering converter academies, which have been exposed for a practice that went back to their time as local authority maintained schools. Once they were subject to external audit, having to publish their accounts, those things seemed to come out into the open. I would argue that the early signs suggest that there is more robust accountability around academies, simply because of the external audit and the publication of accounts.

Mr Raab

The question is to you all, I suppose. From your different perspectives, is the application process for free schools rigorous enough?

Nick Weller

As somebody who has been through it, I would say that it is very tick-boxy. It is very much about producing an audit trail to show that you have checked that everything about the school will be okay. I am sure that every school in the country has a very adequate bullying policy, but until that school opens, you do not know how good that policy will be. That is why I think that more time should be spent on the early years from opening, and as I argued earlier, I would have an interim funding agreement signed off for the first two years, with final signing off after two years.

Mr Raab

But would you do anything different at the outset?

Nick Weller

The process at the moment is too much concerned about asking, “Can you produce an audit trail to show that you have done all of these things?”, rather than about showing proof of your effectiveness. You cannot judge effectiveness until a school opens.

Mr Raab

Okay, but just sticking to the outset, Anastasia or Sue, do you think that it is rigorous and transparent enough?

Sue Higgins

I can talk in the context of the report, which makes recommendations for improvement. We have seen, since wave 1—through the waves—improvements in that. Now that it is clear, they look at the quality of local schools, the demand from the parents and the need for extra places. Those three components were not in place with the early wave, so that is an improvement. There is a much more rigorous set of criteria and a much more rigorous process. We have also got a fit and proper person test now in place from the Department around the proponents of the free school. I have not been through the process, but, in terms of what the process entails, it certainly has been enhanced of late, and hopefully on the back of this it will be enhanced further.

Bill Esterson

On surplus places, are you now confident it will be much less likely that free schools will open in areas with surplus places as a result of the changes you have described?

Sue Higgins

The Department has changed its criteria. It was clear in wave 1. It was demand-led and these other factors were not considered. They are now part of the evaluation criteria, but, from the PAC hearing, it is clear that ultimately it is a continuum through to a ministerial approval process. But they will be considered as part of that.

Nick Weller

Obviously, with an expanding population, the free school programme has been taken over by basic need to a certain extent. Personally, I believe that if it is to be truly experimental and truly to drive improvement in the system, we will always need a free school mechanism, and we should be prepared to open schools where they are not needed if provision locally is not good enough and if parents demand it.

Chair

Are they not areas where there are a lot of surplus places precisely because the quality of education in that local authority is so poor that everyone tries to get out, and therefore it is the very place where you need a challenge and quality schooling introduced?

Nick Weller

Yes.

Anastasia de Waal

I still think that there is a problem. I understand that the process has improved massively on planning, both in terms of trying to recognise whether there is a need for a school and also in terms of trying to publicise the fact that a school is being set up and what the goals are and so on before it actually gets permission, as it were. Equally, we know that the process has become more rigorous in outlining the details of what a free school is going to do. Nevertheless, the very fact that these were not inherent mechanisms within the process indicates again what the purpose of free schools was about, which was about adding new schools, not necessarily on the basis of need, and being very experimental. On making it clear about why there is a case for the free school, there is not enough publicity straightforwardly around it at the moment. There needs to be more clarity, and more people need to be involved. By more people, I mean more Ofsted and local authority involvement. They should not be separated in the way they are. There is room for a happy marriage there.

Mr Raab

Sue, your report said the DfE must improve its data analysis and that it was “unprepared for the financial implications of rapid expansion.” Do you see any sign that those two discrete points have been taken on board?

Sue Higgins

I think the Education Funding Agency cannot ignore that recommendation. Clearly, we have not had the PAC minutes yet and the Department has not responded, but it is patently obvious that those things need to improve, because they need to be able to get a grip of the whole system.

Mr Raab

And you sense that that is recognised by them as well?

Sue Higgins

Yes, I do.

Caroline Nokes

I would like to ask about inspection and the role of Ofsted, which recently announced that good and outstanding schools should have a light-touch inspection process every two or three years. Do you think there should be a difference in the level of inspection processes for good schools compared with those that are struggling?

Nick Weller

It makes sense to focus resources on the area of greatest need, so yes. But it is important that good and outstanding schools are not left alone for too long and that a rigorous desktop analysis is done. I think that that could possibly be improved by being shared. We have had a desktop analysis done at our main school since 2007. I do not have a clue what that might have looked like. I think it should be shared, possibly even published openly, in order to hold schools more to account. But, essentially, you should focus resources where there is most need.

Chair

So that would be a recommendation for this Committee to suggest that that desktop analysis of good and outstanding schools should be published?

Nick Weller

Certainly shared with the school.

Chair

And published by the school on its website for parents to look at?

Nick Weller

At the moment you get a RAISEonline data analysis, which you are directed not to publish. I think you should be free to publish that if you wish to. I think you should be free equally to publish your desktop. If you were not willing to share it, I think that would raise questions, too.

Anastasia de Waal

No, I don’t. I think that schools should be inspected in a similar way. A lot of that is because I think that the role of inspection needs to be much more about working with schools in terms of professional development, and not just in the sense of trying to identify failure. The very fact that that is a suggestion—that you would only go to schools more frequently that had problems—is an indictment of what Ofsted is about. It is about identifying failure; it is not about working on improvement. That is one particular significant element. The other point is that a school, sadly, can go from being “outstanding” with the criteria that Ofsted has to not being “outstanding” very rapidly. Again, you could say that that is a reflection on the fact that the criteria are very problematic—very data driven, rather than being a broader picture of provision. Because we know that can happen, it makes the system in those terms itself very vulnerable. We know for example that a school can have a good cohort in terms of SATs performance in year 6 and get an outstanding grade based largely on data, but perhaps the following year, if it has a weaker cohort, the provision is the same, but it would not. Until we identify those problems, just within the terms of how Ofsted works, I think that would not be an effective system for Ofsted.

Caroline Nokes

Do you think there are any risks inherent with light-touch desktop analysis? Anastasia just used the example of how quickly schools might go from “outstanding” downwards. Particularly in areas such as those you mentioned, bullying policies or safeguarding, do you see any risks with light-touch inspection?

Nick Weller

There are risks, but the way that the inspection framework has been changed in recent years by Sir Michael Wilshaw makes it much less likely, in fact extremely unlikely, that the scenario that was just described would happen. The focus on progress for example, rather than attainment, means that you are looking not just at the ability of cohorts, but at how well they are doing in the school. There are mechanisms by which parents can call inspections. There are mechanisms by which parents can express views—Parent View, for example. I am not suggesting that outstanding and good schools should be left alone entirely, but I think a one-day HMI visit should be enough to spot any potential downward turn. If somebody spots a downward turn, they can call a full inspection. What is proposed is very robust and very effective. It will focus resources where they are most needed, which is where schools require improvement or are failing.

Caroline Nokes

Should there be one inspectorate for all schools or a separate body for inspecting academies?

Nick Weller

Absolutely, there should be the same inspectorate for all schools.

Bill Esterson

John Clarke from Hampshire County Council told us his concern about what has happened with some convertor academies, where results are down compared with similar maintained schools. He used the phrase “coasting schools”. One reason he thought that had happened was because the challenge of having the local authority there providing that role had been taken away. How is this issue avoided with stand-alone academies?

Nick Weller

It must be said that that is not the national picture. It might be the picture in Hampshire, but it is not the national picture. Convertor academies continue to outperform other mainstream schools, which is not surprising because they were outstanding and good to start with. Again, I think a vigorous Ofsted process is how that can be stopped. The more Ofsted focuses on progress, as it is at the moment, and the less it focuses on attainment, the less it will assume that a school is good because it gets a good intake.

Anastasia de Waal

It is a good example of how we need to move away from the idea of academisation being homogenous in what happens when a school become an academy and being a panacea. We know that one of the points about academies is that they are diverse in terms of structure and they will allow different things to happen according to what the sponsorship arrangements are and what sorts of innovation happens, if it happens, in a school. Having said that, I think that one of the purposes of Ofsted should be to look at improvement not just in a crisis, and of course that is where coasting schools are particularly pertinent.

Sue Higgins

I have nothing to say on that.

Bill Esterson

How does the current accountability system encourage school improvement in stand-alone convertors?

Anastasia de Waal

At the moment I think that there is a bit of an issue around thinking that accountability will necessarily truncate innovation. The whole point, presumably, of allowing innovation, particularly when we are talking about the use of public money, is to be if not as transparent as other schools, more transparent. We are seeing different things happen, therefore we need to know how that is happening, what sort of expenditure is involved and so on. So it need not be the case, but it seems that in the set up at the moment is a concern about having to be completely open, particularly about financial matters. I think it is an oddity that there is not one system for all schools when we are talking about public expenditure, but it is particularly odd, when we are encouraging innovation, not to ask for transparency. What we do not want to do is get into a trap where we are saying that accountability measures, particularly in the form of Ofsted, are actually hindering innovation. That is something that we have heard quite a lot of. But that is much more to do with the way that Ofsted works generally, in the same way that it is hindering innovation in regular maintained schools as well.

Bill Esterson

I was asking about school improvement. You talked about financial measures.

Anastasia de Waal

But I think that that is a big part of it. I think it is very difficult to separate some of the issues that we are talking about, such as financial autonomy, when it comes to the other autonomies that academies have. I think that they go hand in hand. And I think that that is one of the reasons we know, significantly, why schools are interested in converting to academy status: for that additional funding. That additional funding then means, at the moment, less transparency. So I think that it is actually very difficult to divorce the two issues.

Bill Esterson

Sure. I suppose the question I am trying to get to the bottom of is: how do you guarantee that there will be a process of school improvement?

Anastasia de Waal

With Ofsted. This is again where Ofsted needs to come into the picture.

Bill Esterson

So it all comes back to Ofsted.

Anastasia de Waal

Well, Ofsted is the main mechanism that we have to ensure that schools are performing to a certain level. Surely, then, it should be looking at improvement. It seems completely unnecessary, and a complete waste of money, to divorce improvement from performance.

Nick Weller

I think that Ofsted can direct schools towards helpful partnerships where they are underperforming. Certainly we find that in Bradford. We have set up a school improvement company that is independent of the local authority, limited by guarantee. It covers all secondary—state-funded schools, free schools, academies, maintained schools—across the city and we have closed the gap between us and the national average by half in the time that we have been open. Ofsted has been very helpful in a couple of cases where people were reluctant to join—we have quite a rigorous system—by helpfully directing people to do so when they found that improvement was required.

Mr Ward

I think it was in Boston that the trust schools were accepted by the public as an experiment and way of encouraging innovation. Is there any evidence in Bradford that new freedoms have brought about innovations that have then been transferred to non-academy and non-free schools?

Nick Weller

In answer to whether our free schools are attracting attention and people are coming to see them, the answer would be yes, and there is interest locally. When you are building a school from scratch, that gives you the opportunity to operate things in a slightly different way and I think that we have had quite a few visits from other schools locally, looking at our systems and aspirations and the way that the whole thing is put together. I think that that will have an influence, but all bits of the sector can innovate.

Chair

Can you give us some examples of different practice and different mixes?

Nick Weller

You might be familiar with quite a lot of this if you have been visiting charter schools, because a lot of this was taken from New York. Things like family dining; having an assembly every day to gather the school together for a brief amount of time so that we can reinforce values; the aspiration that every child goes on to university or equivalent and that they will get the qualifications for that. Above all, it is not just high aspirations, but believing them: putting in a flight path that will guarantee that they get there, and putting in early intervention if they are falling behind. If you visited that school you would see a lot that was familiar to you from the charter school movement.

Craig Whittaker

I know, Anastasia, that you just mentioned that Ofsted is said to have stifled innovation and autonomy, but I was not sure from your answer whether you agreed that that was the case.

Anastasia de Waal

Whether Ofsted is impeding autonomy?

Craig Whittaker

Yes.

Anastasia de Waal

I think that academies and free schools reflect the fact that Ofsted is overly narrow in what it looks at. The concern is a much wider concern and I think it is a problem where it is affecting all schools. It should not be something that we worry about only in the case of free schools and academies. It is just that it is particularly acute there because in theory they are trying to innovate.

Craig Whittaker

I think you are saying that, yes, it does impede.

Anastasia de Waal

Yes it does, so my point is that it should be helping schools to innovate, in the sense of getting a very clear picture of what they are doing. I don’t want us to refer to the independent schools inspectorate as perfect, but looking at what happens with the independent schools inspectorate, one of the things that is very clear is that because of the diversity of the schools that they look at, they have to look much more closely at provision on a much broader scale. For example, they go in for four days, rather than perhaps the one and a half days that we have for very large schools in the state sector, and they often have a bigger inspection team. That is the sort of thing which I think is very important. What I meant—and was obviously not articulating very well at all earlier—was that we need to have more scrutiny in order to enable innovation and it is a mistake to see that looking for transparency and trying to promote it is somehow going to hinder it per se. It needn’t. It actually should foster it.

Craig Whittaker

Okay, so could, for example, the accountability system that we currently have under Ofsted encourage academies to use freedoms in relation to extending the length of the school day or the curriculum, for example? Or would we need to change the accountability system that we have?

Anastasia de Waal

No. The job of the inspectorate, whether it regards the rules that are entitled to some schools and not to others, as satisfactory is neither here nor there. If that is what they are being told they can do, then the point of Ofsted should be within the remit that the school has, to gauge whether they are doing a good job or not. That is what we need to see more of. Within the parameters of what as a school you have been told you can do, how is that actually working out in terms of quality? That is the key aspect.

Craig Whittaker

So how would you encourage that with regard to pedagogy, for example, and practice? How would you encourage that in the accountability system?

Anastasia de Waal

At the moment, because there is such a short time in schools, it is very difficult. That is one of the reasons. The other reason is because inspectors often do not have very much training or experience with a particular age group or are often in there for too short a time, as I said. It is very difficult for them actually to gauge anything other than a very narrow remit through criteria

Craig Whittaker

So what would you do, then? With regard to pedagogy, for example, what would you do?

Anastasia de Waal

I would address those weaknesses and broaden the criteria that they are looking at, so they don’t have to look for a particular teaching method or a particular type of plenary session. The reason why I think that is happening is not because there is a particular pedagogical axe to grind, I think it is because there is only room for one thing to be on the tick-box chart. That is the issue for me.

Nick Weller

I am not sure that’s fair on Sir Michael, not that I as a head teacher would be expected to defend him that valiantly. I think he has shifted Ofsted away from a set pedagogy—looking for plenaries, looking for checking progress every 20 minutes and that sort of thing—to focus people much more on learning. He has probably been in front of you saying that he does not have one prescriptive—

Chair

He said it, he stated it, but he sends increasingly strong letters out to his work force, telling them to do it. That could be a suggestion either that it is happening or that it isn’t happening and he’s rather frustrated at the failure of it to happen.

Nick Weller

I think that is also part of the reason why Ofsted needs to focus on areas with most need at the moment, because Sir Michael is probably going to have to slim down his work force and get rid of some of the additional inspectors and outside agencies that are commissioned. He has a very high-quality team of HMIs, but there is only so much work that they can do. So it is going to be about choices. If you want everything inspected at great length, you are going to have a lot of poor-quality people not doing it. The other choice is to focus right down and improve the quality of the team.

Chair

Anastasia said quite a lot about her vision for Ofsted, which seems to be a much bigger organisation, not just putting up a mirror to schools, but actually being an improvement partner with them. Is that something that you agree with?

Nick Weller

HMI have now been assigned to advance improvement in failing schools, help them with that and to direct them, but so far the evidence is that all they really have the capacity to do is direct them to what is available locally, such as the Bradford Partnership. I don’t think that Ofsted itself has the capacity to drive school improvement; it has the capacity to direct schools that need it and point them in the right direction.

Mr Ward

Talking about accountability and the role of self-evaluation, if I may quote from Civitas, “self-evaluation has become quite literally an industry: private companies are cashing in on self-evaluation, at the expense of not just schools but also the taxpayer”. Discuss, Anastasia.

Anastasia de Waal

We did a book with a lot of different people involved in inspections, so from head teachers, to inspectors themselves, to parents. With self-evaluation it was very interesting. We spent a lot of time talking to John MacBeath who also wrote about it, saying that self-evaluation in principle is a terribly valuable tool for schools. It could not just take the burden off the inspectorate but is intrinsic to real improvement. The problem was that the self-evaluation that we had in the form of the self-evaluation form was much more about self-regulation. It was about doing the paperwork for Ofsted before they came in. This was not self-evaluation as it was envisaged academically. On the issue around it becoming an industry—we know this happens generally with Ofsted inspections—there were advisers coming from inspection providers, for example, who would help schools put together the perfect self-evaluation form. This was not a reflection on whether the school was good. It was a reflection on whether the school had made a judgment to spend that money on an adviser. Clearly, if that is a scenario where you can perform better—that is what it is about—it was not about being able to evaluate yourself better, but about getting a better SEF. That is an issue. What we would like to see is real self-evaluation which is not top down in the same way but is an ongoing process, reflecting on how you are doing, with hard data, as well as the softer elements. It is something that really is organic to the school. It is about the school. It is not about a paper trail.

Mr Ward

Does it form part of the accountability process? Kings Science Academy rated itself as being good in all areas but was judged by Ofsted to be inadequate.

Nick Weller

The Bradford Partnership is a self-evaluation model. Knowing yourself is the most important thing. It is not about tick boxes. It is not about processes. It is about making judgments about how effective you are. Where schools overinflate their sense of achievement, our job is to go in and put that right and correct them. I think that can be a very effective means. I accept that self-evaluation has to be done properly but I think the abandonment of the SEF was nonsense. Most schools are still doing self-evaluation.

Mr Ward

And on the value of collaboration—you may have heard the previous group were asked questions on this—we come across this time and time again: can collaboration be incentivised as part of the accountability system?

Anastasia de Waal

Definitely. It is difficult practically if you have a splintering of schools, as we are seeing at the moment, in terms of their relationships with each other. That is why I am quite keen that there be a body, whether it is the local authority or some other local entity, where there is a sense of being an umbrella organisation for schools to be able to partner together. If that were possible it would be important to have it as an expectation that schools work together. They work together on a resources level, so a practical level, but also in terms of sharing ideas, sharing best practice. So the sorts of things we were hearing about charter schools in New York could also happen because it is happening down the road at one school and the other schools know about it because of that. In the environment we are seeing now that is becoming increasingly difficult.

Chair

In what way is that being made more difficult? There is more collaboration probably than ever before, do you think, between schools?

Anastasia de Waal

Between some schools. But if we wanted to envisage a system where it is a necessary element, if you are having—

Chair

So you want to prescribe co-operation, do you?

Anastasia de Waal

I think partnership is something. We know that this happens with good schools. What we want to do is encourage that. Encouraging that is something that involves schools knowing what is happening in other schools. Where there is a system where you have local authority schools which are very separate from, let us say, an academy chain set of schools, it is difficult at the moment to say, “Please collaborate with each other,” because they do not necessarily have very good links with each other, if any. It is just a reality that we need to factor in. If we want to have diversity—

Chair

You say it is getting worse. From what we could tell from our partnerships inquiry there is more co-operation than ever before. It is hard to prescribe. If you prescribe partnership they will tick a box and they won’t actually do it, so it can be counter-productive. There is more than ever before and you just said there are barriers in the way. I am not clear what those are.

Anastasia de Waal

Maybe I am wrong about this, but is this collaboration between local authority schools and academies, for example? Do we know that?

Chair

Convertor academies sign a commitment—which they fulfil in too few cases—precisely to reach out and help other schools.

Anastasia de Waal

But do we know—

Chair

We will ask the questions.

Nick Weller

In Bradford, the Bradford Partnership covers free schools, academies and maintained schools. There are lots of local authority areas that we have talked to who are walking down a similar path. So I agree with you: there is more collaboration across the sector.

Chair

We would like to see more incentives.

Nick Weller

One thing that has helped that is where local authorities have stepped back and allowed schools to take that up themselves.

Mr Ward

There may be collaboration, but my question was: is there any way to reward a school that decides that it wants to collaborate, as opposed to one within a partnership that is not as effective?

Nick Weller

I do not think that you should be able to get a judgment of outstanding unless you can demonstrate that you are contributing to the wider system—I think that that is a fairly well established idea. And if you require improvement or are in special measures, you have, to some degree, lost the right to total self-determination; therefore, it is appropriate that you might be directed towards appropriate help. Maybe you can able to choose from two or three, but nevertheless you are directed to take at least one of them up. So yes, I do think that that is possible.

Mr Ward

The final area that I want to cover is parents. Do you believe that parents are aware of the changing accountability relationships in the system, with the reduction in local authority involvement as academies and free school movements are coming on?

Nick Weller

In Bradford, the Dixons group has quite a strong brand. You will be aware that there was quite a lot of fuss over Bradford Moor primary, when it went into special measures as soon as we were put forward as the recommended sponsor, but all of that died down. I think the question that parents are most interested in is, “Do I trust these people to give a good education to my child?” Once that question is answered, I am not sure that they are too interested in structural issues; whether it is a maintained school or an academy.

Anastasia de Waal

I think the problem arises when they think that, actually, the school is not providing a good education and that they do not trust it. Because it is a changing landscape, it is difficult for parents—or even people generally—to find out what the accountability mechanisms are. There needs to be much greater clarity around that. Schools need to have a duty to make it very clear how parents can complain and what they need to do.

Mr Ward

That was my next question. Thank you.

Chair

We talked in the earlier session about whether democratic accountability had an important role to play. What do you feel about that?

Nick Weller

I would say that a local monopoly of educational services does not necessarily deliver democratic accountability. Possibly the role of scrutiny by councillors and their local scrutiny committee might be beefed up, and if you are a provider of education in a council area and you are requested to turn up to a hearing, I think that you should be expected to do so, but I do not necessarily think that there is a link between local authorities and democratic accountability. As I said earlier, Rhodes Way was on the slide for 15 years—

Chair

When we were in the United States, again and again people there said that becoming a charter school and having autonomy in and of itself does not raise education standards for children, but, if you could combine greater autonomy with sharper, more rigorously enforced accountability, you could drive up standards and drive out poor practice. Is that the central insight of the academies programme? Did the democratic accountability as was mean that there was, in fact, a protective cloak put around mediocre or failing schools, which could carry on failing?

Nick Weller

I think there is a high level of accountability to the parents and students that you serve and to the governing body. You see that with the turnover of head teachers and things like that. I think that the higher autonomy brings higher accountability and the consequences of that. I think that that is essentially a better system.

Chair

In what way could you evidence the fact that this accountability has in fact been strengthened?

Nick Weller

You look at the sponsored academy movement and the way it has a high turnover of headship and has closed the gap. It has improved more rapidly than other sector of the education system.

Anastasia de Waal

I do not agree. The evidence does show us that with accountability you need transparency and that the two work together very well. What we do not have enough of at the moment is transparency, and as I said earlier, that is hindering the progress to utilise that innovation and autonomy better.

Chair

You did say that earlier. Could you explain what you mean when you say there is a lack of transparency? What is not being made public that ought to be?

Anastasia de Waal

Things have improved. Initially, when academies were not subject to freedom of information, for example, there was a big issue around the sort of courses that were being used to make for the progress that was happening with A* to C rates. We knew that academies were doing much better in terms of their five A* to C grades, but we did not know that there were underlying differences that were a surprise to many people. That has improved, but I do think there are issues around governance, for example, and transparency; simply understanding what is happening on a governance level and also on financial matters. As I understand it there is greater financial scrutiny possible for LA schools, and I think the same should apply to academies, particularly because the funding arrangements can be different.

Chair

Sue has said that it is a lighter touch, but there is no evidence so far to suggest that there is less effective financial management for academies than for maintained schools.

Sue Higgins

No. The thing I should have added was that a lighter touch regime inherently accepts a higher level of risk in the system. Unless you really want to resource up the inspection and oversight arrangements, there is inherently a high level of risk in a light touch arrangement. That is clear from studies we have done elsewhere in health and other areas. As I said earlier, we are doing a piece of work that is looking in a more comparative way at the two sets.

Chair

Nick, academies made greater use of equivalences, I think. Various qualifications have had certain values for GCSE for instance. That reform to equivalences is going to be implemented finally this year. Are we suddenly going to find that a lot of academies that looked as though they were performing well, when they are put on a more level and rigorous playing field, do less so?

Nick Weller

I am not sure that was exclusive to academies.

Chair

It was more prevalent in academies.

Nick Weller

It was, but it was prevalent in schools that were attempting to turn themselves around. Starting from a very low base, one way to do that, whether you are a maintained school or an academy, was to give children a means to success and give them qualifications that they could attain. After a while, once you have built up a sense of improvement, then you start to introduce an element of academic rigour into that. I think you will find that some—not just academies but some maintained schools as well—do suffer.

Chair

Is there a risk that, when we get a more level playing field, the relative acceleration of improvement in academies, much quoted by the previous Government and this, turns out to be illusory?

Nick Weller

Possibly in the sponsored area to a certain extent. Remember the great judgment since then has not just been five A* to C, as at the time Anastasia referred to; it is five A* to C with English and Maths. If you can get somebody English and Maths you can get them other qualifications. So I think that problem was addressed five years ago when that changed.

Mr Ward

One thing we identified in Boston and New Orleans was that the charter schools attracted very good staff, although there were some concerns about burnout of staff in intensive teaching environments there. In the staffing of schools, Bradford again was in a spiral of decline and found it difficult to attract quality teachers and leaders to Bradford. Is there any evidence from the academies and free schools that there has been an attraction of good-quality staff to those schools in particular?

Nick Weller

There is some evidence of that. There is also evidence if you look at schemes such Teach First or Future Leaders, that the way to attract really high-quality people is not necessarily to restrict their working hours to 1,265 or even pay them lots of money, but it is to offer them real professional development that is going to move them on professionally in their career and offer them challenge. I therefore think that those schools that sell that idea, rather than a comfortable life, may well attract higher quality staff.

Chair

Are academies more likely to do that? The key ingredient in any education system is the teachers—teacher quality—which is the prism through which I think every educational decision should be made. To what extent does the academies programme increase the overall number of high-quality teachers in the system? It might be effective in attracting more good teachers from with the system, but the big question is whether it can increase the overall number.

Nick Weller

It has certainly made a lot of use, as I said, of programmes such as Teach First, who are people who would probably not have come to teaching otherwise, but they have come into teaching for a while.

Chair

Why would Teach First not have been just as effective in sending children into maintained schools in difficulty, as opposed to academies in difficulty?

Nick Weller

Teach First also serves maintained schools, but the sorts of schools they serve best are those schools where there is a sense of momentum, social purpose and a sense that you are making a difference and improving.

Bill Esterson

And that does not happen in maintained schools?

Nick Weller

No, I said that it services maintained schools as well, but the sponsored academy movement has been improving at a faster rate than the rest of the sector, so it obviously attracts more of those people.

Mr Ward

Chair, may we end with a set of recommendations from the witnesses? At the end of the day, we want to produce something that says, “The Government should” or “The Government should not”—whatever it is. What would you recommend to us? Looking at the system as it currently is and considering where you would like it to be, what do we need to do in order to change and improve?

Anastasia de Waal

Several things. I would like to see the autonomy that has been granted to academies granted to all schools. I do not think that you need a structure—

Mr Ward

That is exactly what I told Mr Gove.

Anastasia de Waal

Right. I think that that is very important. Autonomy is valuable, but I do not think that new structures are terribly helpful in that—they can be rather confusing. Secondly, I think that—

Chair

I am confused by how you could grant it to all schools without doing so—academy is simply a name for being free from the local authority and standing on your own. Do you mean that you want enforced academisation of every school?

Anastasia de Waal

No, I want schools to have the possibility to exercise more autonomy. I do not think that that requires the local authority not to be involved and I do not necessarily mean it involving things such as changing pay scales or pay and conditions. I am discussing professional autonomy. Under the previous Government, the big issue was that schools felt they had to do too much that was prescribed from the centre. Autonomy, in terms of professionalism when it comes to teaching, is something that all schools need. We do not need academies for that and we could have local authorities for that.

Bill Esterson

And yet we already have one of the most autonomous systems in the world, according to the OECD.

Anastasia de Waal

Yes, but any teacher will tell you that the theme under the previous Government was trying to move away from prescription. At that time we were telling teachers what to do for the first 10 or 15 minutes of every literacy or numeracy lesson, and that was when it was felt that there was not the opportunity to exercise professionalism and respond to the kids in front of you. I think that that was a very important lack of autonomy. It has improved to an extent, but it still has not improved enough.

Chair

Okay, thank you. I will have to cut you off there. Nick?

Nick Weller

In terms of reforms I would like to see local authorities focus more on their statutory duties on SEN, admissions and place provision. The actual provision of education confuses their more strategic role so I would like to see a 100%-academised system. I would like to see more tie-up between Ofsted and the DfE in terms of the judgments made about sponsors, and about who can and cannot sponsor, because there are gaps there.

Chair

Rather than being part of the Department, would these brokers who wander the country trying to rustle up excellent sponsors be better placed in a charity or whatever? New Schools For New Orleans was an independent organisation that went out and did that role; it was not part of the Government or vested in schools.

Nick Weller

I think that working under the Office of the Schools Commissioner—Frank Green is an excellent appointment to that role—is a very positive thing and that they should stay where they are for now. The schools commissioner will be a lot more proactive in that area. Lastly, I think that there should be some time limitation on funding agreements for new providers.

Chair

So more like the charters, with that attitude of: “You deliver what you have promised within a certain time, or else,” and that being rigorously enforced—if they do not deliver, they get intervened on.

Nick Weller

Yes, and then after that, full sign-off.

Sue Higgins

Our free schools report recently made seven recommendations. I will not repeat them, but they are all things that you would expect, as a system matures, about improving, learning from the best and putting in better systems. The PAC anticipates publishing its report with recommendations by the end of the month.

Chair

Super. May I thank all three of you for giving evidence to us today? Please do get in touch if you have any further thoughts, not least on the recommendations. Thank you. Oral evidence: Academies and free schools, HC 981 12