Revealed: Poor results for too many pupils at Yorkshire's biggest school academy chain

Sir Michael Wilshaw has raised the alarm as the education watchdog published a critical report from focused visits to schools run by Yorkshire’s biggest academy chain, the School Partnership Trust Academies.

The chief inspector’s letter to Nicky Morgan said serious weaknesses found at seven multi academy trusts, including SPTA, were leading to poor results.

He said that many of the trusts had the same weaknesses as the worst performing local councils and he questioned the big salaries of chief executives at these organisations who said were all earning more than the Prime Minister.

A Department for Education spokesman described the Ofsted report as “a partial and skewed picture and no reflection on the success of the Multi-Academy Trust model as a whole”.

Sir Michael’s intervention follows controversy over the role of Ofsted in inspecting academy chains.

Inspectors cannot give a judgement on an academy sponsor or specifically inspect the trust itself.

However Ofsted has been carrying out focused inspections where groups of academies run by the same chain are causing concern.

Sir Michael’s letter follows seven inspections of schools in major academy chains including some of the major national trusts including AET, E-Act and the SPTA.

He said he “fully supports the Government’s ambition to create a more diverse and autonomous school system”, but identified a slew of “concerns” - including declines in progress levels by children from disadvantaged backgrounds.

He said: “Given that the academies movement was initiated principally to improve the performance of disadvantaged pupils, it is particularly concerning that many of the academies in these trusts are failing their poorest children.

“Given these worrying findings about the performance of disadvantaged pupils and the lack of leadership capacity and strategic oversight by trustees, salary levels for the chief executives of some of these MATs do not appear to be commensurate with the level of performance of their trusts or constituent academies.”

He said the average pay of the chief executives in these seven trusts is higher than the Prime Minister’s salary, with one chief executive’s salary reaching £225,000 - something described as “poor use” of public money.

The report was based on inspections at the SPTA, AET, E-Act, The Education Fellowship, Wakefield City, CfBT and Oasis Learning academy chains.

Commenting on inspections at SPTA and AET, Sir Michael said: “Both show a gap of around 25 percentage points between disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged pupils attaining Level 4+ in reading, writing and mathematics for the group of academies that we inspected within each MAT.

“This compares with the national gap of 17 percentage points between disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged pupils.

“Furthermore, as the SPTA letter that I am publishing today shows, disadvantaged pupils in SPTA academies are not making enough progress by the end of Key Stage 4. In 2015, their progress in English was below that expected nationally in six SPTA academies and in 10 SPTA academies in mathematics.”

The SPTA runs 46 schools, mainly in Yorkshire. The academy chain was started from what was Garforth Community College - a successful secondary school.

A letter sent from Ofsted to the SPTA following a focused inspection of some of its schools which were causing concern said the impact of the Trust’s work in bringing about improvement where it is most needed has been too slow.

It adds: “Where standards have been intractably low for some time, the Trust is not driving significant, sustained improvement.  The standard of education provided by the Trust is not good enough in around 40 per cent of its academies inspected so far.”

However it says the SPTA has had more impact at its primary academies than its secondaries.

“Seventeen of the 24 primary academies are judged to be good or better; the figure for secondary academies is only five out of 14 .  The Trust has had a greater impact on improving the overall effectiveness of its primary, compared to its secondary, academies.  Eleven primary academies have improved their overall effectiveness grade since joining the Trust. Nine of these academies improved from less than good, to good or better. Conversely, only five of the secondary academies have improved, three of them getting to good.  The Trust has not yet achieved one of its stated aims to provide an improving quality of education for all pupils who attend one of its academies.” 

Steve Hodsman, chair of the board of directors at SPTA. said: “School Partnership Trust Academies recognises the strengths and also the challenges identified by Ofsted in its recent trust wide inspection.

“Already, 90 per cent of our primary academies have stronger outcomes and a similar proportion have maintained or improved their inspection judgement since their academy conversion.

“However, the Board acknowledges Ofsted’s concerns about the under-performance of some of our secondary academies.  

“The newly enhanced Board of Directors has taken determined and positive action to address the challenges and has recently appointed a Chief Executive Officer, Paul

Tarn,  charged with responsibility for driving up standards across all SPTA academies.     

“Paul was previously the Deputy Chief Executive for Outwood Grange Academies Trust (OGAT), one of the country’s highest performing academy groups. 

“In appointing, Mr Tarn, the Board  has engaged a highly experienced National Leader of Education with an outstanding record of rapid school improvement, with many years of experience working alongside Sir Michael Wilkins and the OGAT Board of Directors.”

Mr Tarn said: “I am looking forward to working with colleagues and the board at SPTA to make the trust an outstanding provider of education for young people in the north of England.”

A Department for Education spokesperson said: “This report is focused on seven chains that Ofsted has identified as causing them the most concern. It is a partial and skewed picture and no reflection on the success of the Multi-Academy Trust model as a whole.

“No child should spend a single day in a failing school and work is already underway in all of these cases with Regional School Commissioners challenging these chains to show how they will improve and where that is not happening taking swift action – a sharp contrast to days when underperforming schools were left to languish under local authority schools. However there are many great MATs driving up standards and delivering an excellent education to children across the country, thanks to their ability to share resources, expertise and provide support to schools that may be struggling.”