Joining an academy trust has only a “small” positive impact on the fortunes of so-called “stuck” secondary schools, and none at all for languishing primary schools, new research suggests.
The findings raise doubts about the government’s plans to improve schools by moving them all into multi-academy trusts. Researchers warned academisation was “not a silver bullet”.
A new report from the Education Policy Institute and UCL Institute of Education found that schools persistently rated less than ‘good’ by Ofsted faced a “cycle of challenging circumstances” and limited improvement.
The plight of stuck schools was previously highlighted by Ofsted in 2018, when chief inspector Amanda Spielman warned there were hundreds of schools that had not been rated above ‘requires improvement’ or ‘inadequate’ for over a decade.
