Use private expertise to transform failing schools, says PM’s ex-adviser

Five times as many schools could be told they are under-performing in the future as Ofsted changes its inspection regime, and a new system will be needed to turn them round, according to James O’Shaughnessy.

In a report for the Policy Exchange, Mr O’Shaughnessy, who previously worked as a policy adviser to David Cameron, calls for the Government to introduce a new regime to deal with failing schools, with clear consequences for those that do not improve.

This should include using private companies, both for-profit and not-for-profit, to “tackle intractable failure”.

In his report, Mr O’Shaughnessy argues that the rise of chains of academies – semi-independent state schools that receive funding directly, rather than through a local authority, and have more freedom over areas such as pay and conditions and the curriculum – is timely because “England faces a serious educational problem”.

Ofsted has suggested that two-fifths of schools are not better than satisfactory, the report says, and the inspectorate has now scrapped the “satisfactory” and replaced it with “requires improvement”.

The report suggests that the first time a school receives a “requires improvement” rating it should be made to become an academy. If it gets a second “requires improvement” rating it should be made to join a successful academy chain. If standards are still not raised, the school should be handed over to a proven “education management organisation” to run.