Commenting on the Education Secretary's speech to the CST and his
vision for MAT growth, behaviour and discipline, Kevin
Courtney, Joint General Secretary of the National Education
Union, said:
This is a disappointing but not surprising set of proposals which
encapsulate the Government’s distorted priorities and
evidence-free approach to education policy.
Heads and teachers understand very well the importance of
re-establishing the routines for good learning and behaviour.
Teachers will wonder why the Secretary of State, instead of
fixating on mobile phones or surveys, doesn't talk about what
schools need to help students make positive choices and learning
habits - things like smaller class sizes, more funding for
pastoral support, and releasing time for teachers to work with
small groups and assess learning gaps. Teachers will also expect
much more joined up thinking about the links between poverty,
stigma, well-being and young people’s behaviour.
The Education Secretary claims that the pandemic shows the
benefits of collaboration and pooling of resources within MATs
and that this should be the future of the school system. If
anything, the pandemic response has shown us the vital role of
local authorities, which have stepped up to co-ordinate
partnerships and provide vital support to schools, not least
around the provision of school meals.
The English school system does not need further fragmentation
into competing MATs. Study upon study has shown that academy
reforms have reduced equality and equity in our school system
while undermining accountability to parents and children.
The Government’s priorities are clearly in the wrong place,
announcing that £24m will be handed over to academy trusts to
help them expand just weeks after cuts to pupil premium funding
were revealed.
The fragmented academy system has serious structural problems and
contradictions which are entirely the fault of this Government.
This is in some ways an attempt to paper over those cracks – with
the idea that “strong” MATs will somehow provide the answers. We
have heard this before, and some MATs, such as Wakefield City
Academy Trust, which were previously lauded by ministers no
longer exist, having collapsed and left schools and local
authorities to pick up the pieces. What has changed that will
make this latest push to academise all schools by boosting a new
group of favoured chains less risky and damaging?
The pandemic and the disruption it has brought to our education
system is in fact far from over; now is not the time to begin
forcing schools into irreversible changes based on dogma.
What we need is greater coherence and investment in the
democratic structures and support that bind schools to one
another and to their communities.
