Academy status for a third of county's schools

The county now has more than 700 schools run by charitable trusts, including 183 secondaries, with sponsors ranging from churches to businesses and philanthropists.

Research carried out by The Yorkshire Post shows that 706 schools are now academies, encompassing nine alternative provision schools – often available to pupils who are on the verge of being excluded – two middle schools, eight all-through schools and 16 special schools.

There are also 28 University Technical Colleges (UTCs), studio schools and free schools in the region, which are brand new schools set up as academies by groups including parents, teachers and charities.

A total of 1,481 schools remain under council control in Yorkshire.

The Government wants all schools to become academies, independent of local councils, which traditionally ran English schools, and funded direct by Whitehall. Currently, 2,128 out of 3,172 secondary schools in England are academies, while 3,829 out of 16,649 primary schools have academy status.

The number grew dramatically under the Coalition Government, from 203 in May 2010, and has continued under the present Conservative government.

The staggering growth reflects the Government’s ambition of increasing the academy programme but it has raised questions about the accountability and the pace of change – particularly with a major increase of organisations running a large number of academies. Academies are overseen by academy trusts, and increasing numbers are part of chains, otherwise known as multi-academy trusts (MATs), with some running schools across the country. The Academies Enterprise Trust is England’s largest chain and looks after 66 primary and secondaries from London to Yorkshire, where it oversees 11 schools.

In England, the number of these chains tripled from 391 in March 2011 to 1,197 as of March this year. Out of 6,244 academies, more than 4,000 are in a trust - one in five of all state-funded schools in the country, according to the latest government figures.

There are currently 125 multi-academy trusts running schools in Yorkshire, with the Delta Academies Trust being the largest, running 38 schools in the region.

The chief executive of the trust, Paul Tarn, who harbours an ambition to use the academy programme as a catalyst to regenerate education in the north, said he was passionate about academy chains as they “support other schools and each other to drive up standards”.

But there are significant concerns about the performance, accountability and expansion of multi-academy trusts.

Neil Carmichael, Conservative MP and chair of the Education Select Committee, told The Yorkshire Post: “I’m very supportive of the academy programme and I think multi-academy trusts are a good way of running a collection of schools for several reasons,

Continued on Page 6; plus special report.