A university-sponsored academy trust with 13 schools has been told to urgently strengthen its support for secondary school improvement, following an Ofsted review.

The news comes with the government still understood to be keen to encourage more universities to get more involved with running state schools.

Ofsted carried out a focused inspection of seven schools run by the Education Central Multi-Academy Trust (ECMAT), which is sponsored by the University of Wolverhampton, as well as phone calls with other leaders and follow-up visits, in June.

The trust sponsors three secondary and 10 primary schools in the West Midlands and, following the Ofsted review, one primary and two secondaries are in special measures, two primaries and one secondary are judged to “require improvement”, and six primaries are “good”. One primary has not been inspected since joining the trust.

A letter from inspector Rob Hackfath to ECMAT chief executive Michelle Lowe, published this morning, says that school leaders “do not have a consistent understanding of what it means to be an ECMAT school”.

He writes: “Trustees’ clearly stated ambition to raise pupils’ aspirations has had limited impact in a number of schools. Too many pupils are receiving a less than good quality of education, and some have done so for a number of years. Since joining the trust, standards in secondary schools have declined.”

Safeguarding ‘not effective’

The inspections found that safeguarding was “not effective in some schools”, although the trust “swiftly and effectively” addressed the concerns after they were raised.

Ofsted also found that the trust’s impact on its schools was “inconsistent”, with some school leaders positive about its impact and some not.

The letter says that until recently ECMAT has not done enough to provide strong leadership of school improvement, which “allowed weak teaching to persist and poor decision-making by some school leaders and local governors to go unchecked”.

However, Mr Hackfath also writes that there are now signs of improvement in some schools where standards were not good, with recent appointments bringing greater challenge and support to some schools. He also notes strong and effective support for newly qualified teachers, and tighter management of financial resources.

He recommends that the trust “urgently improve teaching, learning and assessment and pupils’ outcomes in schools where standards have been low for a long time”, and “urgently strengthens the trust’s support for secondary school improvement”.

Professor Lowe said ECMAT will be “looking very closely” at the comments and recommendations of the inspectors, but said the acknowledgement of its work with its primary schools was “very positive”.

She added: “There is still plenty of work to do across our other schools. Improvements and good practice haven’t been embedded as quickly as we would have liked but we feel we now have the structure and systems in place to address those issues.

“There is certainly more work to do with our secondary schools. Looking at the context of their status when they converted to academies and what we have had to do to point them in the right direction again, the trust feels we are taking effective action and making progress, something which Ofsted has also noted.

“The vision for the trust remains clear and that is to raise aspirations and attainment and to provide a good education for all of our pupils. That remains at the very core of what we do and we are committed to delivering that.”

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