Gove backs academy chain takeover of failing schools

He told the Yorkshire Post that Ofsted was right to launch inspections monitoring whether local councils were doing enough to drive up standards in their areas.

The chief inspector of schools Sir Michael Wilshaw announced that it was launching targeted inspections in areas where there were large numbers of pupils not accessing good schools.

The education watchdog is to visit schools in six “under-performing” education authority areas over the next few weeks. If there are concerns over council’s school improvement services then Ofsted will inspect this as well.

Sir Michael said that where councils fail to act when schools are under-performing, an academy sponsor or another local authority could be drafted in to take over school improvement.

Mr Gove said if the authority was failing he would support “an organisation with a track record of improving performance” being brought in.

However the Education Secretary praised the work of Leeds City Council in helping to raise standards in schools. Last year the Department for Education (DfE) said the city was a hot-spot authority for the number of primary schools failing to meet national floor targets. Mr Gove said yesterday that the DfE was working well with the council to raise standards. He declined to say what outcome he wanted to see from the GCSE court case which has seen an alliance of councils, including 11 from Yorkshire, calling for English exams to be regraded.

Mr Gove visited Horsforth School yesterday where he met members of the School Council. During the meeting he told them he was reforming A-levels to ensure students could spend more time learning about subjects and less time being assessed.