Jess Phillips – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jess Phillips on 2016-05-19.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many of the academy trusts approved to receive the Northern fund for academy sponsors were operating schools that had (a) received a requires improvement rating, (b) received an inadequate rating and (c) had been placed in special measures by Ofsted.

Edward Timpson

The Northern Fund was announced by the Chancellor in the 2014 Autumn Statement, to boost academy sponsorship in the North of England as a means of turning around standards in some of the most educationally deprived parts of the country.

The first competition was run in June and July 2015, with awards being announced in November 2015. Two further competitions were run in January and February 2016.

A total of 65 academy sponsors received an award under the Northern Fund. At that time, the number of sponsors operating schools in these categories breaks down as follows:

• 22 sponsors were operating schools that had received a requires improvement rating.

• Seven sponsors were operating schools that had received an inadequate rating; and, of these seven sponsors, five were operating schools that had been placed in Special Measures, which is a subset of the inadequate category.

By definition, approved academy sponsors are working with groups of schools, some of which have the most deeply ingrained challenges. Sponsors will often have a mixed portfolio of schools at different stages of both absolute performance and improvement. The Northern Fund is designed to help selected sponsors develop additional capacity in geographical locations of need. Ministers and Regional Schools Commissioners are confident that recipients of the Northern Fund will be able to benefit schools that need their help.