The national schools commissioner Sir David Carter has admitted that he does not have the power to force academy trusts to take over so-called “untouchable schools”.
Local education leaders, academy chain chief executives and education lawyers have told TES that there are an increasing number of schools whose troubles are so deeply rooted that risk-adverse trusts are refusing to sponsor them.
Sir David said he “absolutely” recognised the situation, but when asked if he had the powers to force an academy trust to take on a particular school, he replied: “No, no.”
However, he denied this was a flaw in the system, saying that he and his regional schools commissioners (RSCs) did not regard any schools as “untouchable”.
He added: “The notion that there are schools out there who we allow to disintegrate and just fall apart is not true. But we need the capacity in the system to be flexible enough to help those schools when we need to.”
‘Hub and spoke’ strategy
Sir David said that, in the short term, RSCs identified preferred sponsors, and asked them to run the challenging school on a contract, so they could have an immediate impact, while becoming familiar with its difficulties.
His longer-term solution was a “hub and spoke” strategy, where incoming sponsors were given a group of perhaps half a dozen schools, including the one in difficulty, to allow them to build a network.
He also responded to concerns raised in TES last week by former Ofsted chief inspector Sir Mike Tomlinson, who said RSCs lacked sufficient resources and powers to make targeted interventions in struggling schools.
Sir David said that, while RSCs had the powers they needed to deal with failing schools, they did not have enough capacity in some parts of the country.
“I don’t think I could ever say confidently that we have got the capacity because in some areas we have got overcapacity, and in some areas it’s undercapacity,” he added. “But our job is to use areas where we have got plenty of it to help the areas where we haven’t, or look at groups that will move into those areas and build it.”
@geomr
