Sir Peter Lampl has called upon the government to take urgent action to ensure academies fulfil their policy objectives and improve standards.
Below par
His comments come after the Sutton Trust’s Chain Effects research highlighted the stark differences in performance between academy chains across the UK.
The charity, which is chaired by Sir Peter, found that one in five established academy chains (eight out of 39) are performing below the national average for exam results and improvement levels of their poorer pupils.
Sir Peter said: “Our analysis shows while there are some academies achieving great results, a similar proportion continue to struggle to improve the outcomes of their most disadvantaged students. The Government and its new infrastructure of Regional Schools Commissioners needs to act radically and rapidly to ensure that academies achieve improved outcomes for disadvantaged pupils.”
Performance
Despite some academy chains performing below par, the research identified a similar number of chains (7 out of 39) whose disadvantaged pupils performed substantially above the national average for all mainstream schools.
In this group, the proportion of disadvantaged students achieving five good GCSEs is at least 12 percentage points higher than the average disadvantaged students in all state schools.
Among the highest performers were ARK schools, a chain which now has 34 primary and secondary academies in London, Birmingham and the South of England and the Diocese of London. In Yorkshire, the Outwood Grange Academies Trust performed excellently.
Conversion
Separate research published by the Education Policy Institute found that turning state schools into academies doesn’t guarantee that children will get a good education.
They also found a high variability in standards throughout academy chains and said that the government couldn’t guarantee being able to provide a good standard of education to every child.
You can read the Trust’s Chains Effect research here: http://www.suttontrust.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Chain-Effects-2016_FINAL.pdf
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