Minister attacked for school academies confusion

It was announced yesterday that every primary, secondary and special school in the country can bid to opt of local council control to become an academy – as long as they team up with an outstanding school.

Mr Gove has already written to every school in England, however, inviting them to apply to become academies.

Teaching unions warned last night the messages coming from the Department for Education were bewildering and would load more paperwork onto schools.

Mr Gove and Prime Minister David Cameron made the latest announcement at an event with the heads of 150 outstanding schools who have been the first to apply to become academies.

In May this year, Mr Gove said that all schools rated as outstanding by Ofsted would be automatically approved to opt out of local education authority control.

Now he is extending this to all schools who are rated as "being good with outstanding features". Ministers are also allowing special schools to apply for academy status for the first time.

"We know the best way of improving schools is by getting professionals, who have already done a brilliant job, to spread their wings," he said.

"That is why we are now allowing more schools to benefit by enabling all schools to apply for academy status if they are teamed with a high-performing school."

The general secretary of the National Union of Teachers (NUT), Christine Blower, said yesterday's announcement conflicted with previous statements that every school could apply

She said: "If the Government has no clear idea of how schools can convert to academy status, how on earth can the public, governors or parents have any confidence in the programme."

The general secretary of the National Association of Schoolmasters and Union of Women Teachers, Chris Keates said: "There is nothing new in this. Since the Academies Act went through Parliament all schools have been eligible to apply.

"However, no one has been killed in a rush for schools to convert. Only a handful of schools became academies."

According to the latest figures, 224 applications have been received since July and around 80 schools have converted so far – including eight across Yorkshire.

A further 64 academies have replaced schools that were failing nationally.

Academies were originally created by Tony Blair's Government to replace struggling inner city secondary schools, and were opened in a new building and backed by a private sponsor.

They are funded directly from Government rather than local councils and have freedoms to set their own timetable, employment and admissions arrangements. The coalition Government is now seeking to give academy freedoms to the country's best state schools rather than using them as an intervention to replace the country's worst performers.

Speaking ahead of yesterday's event Mr Cameron said: "Improving education is central to our reform agenda and we are committed to giving governors, head teachers and teachers more control over how they run their schools."

Heads 'hiding bad pupils from Ofsted'

HEADTEACHERS are hiding unruly pupils from Ofsted inspectors to stop their school being labelled as badly behaved, a cross-party group of MPs have been warned.

Badly behaved pupils are suspended, or supply teachers are being brought in to cover disruptive classes to stop inspectors seeing the worst children, the Commons education select committee was told yesterday.

Tom Trust, a former elected member of the General Teaching Council for England for the secondary sector, said getting evidence from headteachers about problem behaviour at their schools was not always reliable because they had too much to lose by flagging it up.