New bosses at two Yorkshire academy chains vow to deliver improvements after poor league table showing

The Government has produced performance tables measuring academy trust performance for the first time.

They show how each trust’s academies perform overall at GCSE and primary school Sats tests. Trusts are rated as being significantly above or below the national average or close to it. The data shows big variations in the performance of academy chains. Most trusts nationally are said to be below the national average at GCSE.

At secondary level three trusts in Yorkshire are significantly below the national average and two are significantly above it.

Those below the national average were School Partnership Trust Academies (SPTA), Yorkshire’s biggest academy chain which runs more than 40 schools, Wakefield City Academies Trust (WCAT) which has been backed by the Government to take on more schools in the North and White Rose Academies which runs three schools in Leeds.

Both SPTA and WCAT have new chief executives. SPTA is now working with (Outwood Grange Academies Trust), another major academy chain in Yorkshire, where schools at both primary and secondary are said to be significantly above the national average in the Department for Education’s tables. The other trust in Yorkshire where standards at GCSE are said to be significantly above average is Tapton School Academies Trust, in Sheffield.

The SPTA’s chief executive Paul Tarn is the former deputy chief executive of OGAT. He said that in the past SPTA lacked the structure and systems needed to improve schools in challenging circumstances.

An SPTA spokesman said: “We welcome the use of performance data to challenge the performance of multi-academy trusts (MATs).  The new board of directors at SPTA has taken decisive action to ensure its academies are set for rapid improvement and there is now a relentless focus on school improvement in primary and secondary.”

Mr Tarn added: “In a period of change, leaders and staff at all levels have now been given the systems, training and support to drive rapid improvements. 

“It is our unshakable belief that every child should benefit from an outstanding education and we will not be deflected from delivering this to the children, parents and communities we serve.”

He has been appointed following the departure of chief executive Sir Paul Edwards last year.

WCAT is also under new leadership as its current chief executive Alan Yellup is on personal leave. Its secondary schools were also said to be significantly below the national average.

WCAT’s interim chief executive Mike Ramsay said: “We accept, on the face of it, the trust’s position in these tables is not where we want to be. However, the trust, over the last two years, has agreed to take on academies in some of the Yorkshire region’s most challenged communities.

“While some are already demonstrating outstanding practice, turning a school around cannot be done overnight. An Ofsted focused inspection in July last year declared the Trust was making a ‘positive difference to the quality of provision and outcomes for pupils within its academies”.