Gove to 
speed up 
academy 
plans for 
primaries

MICHAEL GOVE has launched a fresh assault on hundreds of under-performing primary schools in a bid to raise standards.

The Education Secretary announced that he is writing to MPs asking them to support his plans to turn more primaries into academies.

In a speech yesterday he said there was a need to “move even faster, extending the frontiers of opportunity, providing more excellent school places for more children than ever before”.

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Last year, Mr Gove said that the Government planned to turn 200 of the worst primary schools in England into academies.

In total, 310 poor primaries have now become, or are in the process of becoming academies through this initiative.

But he added: “There are hundreds more under-performing primary schools, many concentrated in other disadvantaged communities, where we need to act. Children in those schools are not receiving the education they deserve. And today I want to invite the MPs in those communities to work with me to open up the education system in their areas to the new providers who can raise standards.”

Mr Gove said he would be writing to MPs in areas of “concentrated educational under-performance” to outline the need “to act and drawing attention to the failure, so far, of those in positions of power in local councils to move fast enough in improving our schools”.

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He said that there were a number of communities where “local forces of conservatism” have worked against reform and “thrown every possible obstacle in the path of potential academy sponsors and free school founders trying to make a difference”. Mr Gove announced that he was starting by writing to MPs in Derby and Leicester.

It is understood that the Government is targeting primary schools that fall below a nationally set floor standard. Schools are below the threshold if less than 60 per of pupils reach, the level expected for the age group, in reading, writing and arithmetic, and pupils are not making expected progress.