‘Beware of academy expansion in Bristol’

In the last full council meeting before May’s mayoral election George Ferguson said of education in Bristol that “we should be proud of the way education is going”, and there is “room for improvement” but that “excellent people have been put in charge of [the Ofsted inadequate rated] City Academy”.

Were the “excellent people” Ferguson referred to those running Cabot Learning Federation?

The Cabot Learning Federation (CLF) is Bristol’s largest multi-academy trust. Founded by the now national schools commissioner David Carter, it has near monopoly of secondary education provision in east Bristol having recently taken over the running of City Academy from the failed One World Trust.

This “re-brokering” to the CLF is the third of its kind since the City Academy was established in 2003, triggered when City Academy received an inadequate rating from Ofsted. 

The latest annual report for year ending August 31, 2015, states that two of the CLF’s eight secondary schools had failed to meet government floor targets for A*-C GCSE results and described achievement of disadvantaged and post-16 students across its schools as “mixed”.

In total, five of the CLF’s eight secondary schools saw A*-C GCSE grades, including English and maths, drop from the previous year. 

January 2016 saw a teachers’ strike at their flagship secondary John Cabot Academy narrowly avoided with last-minute extended negotiations involving the two largest teaching unions in the country, the NUT and NASUWT.

This was quickly followed by an unannounced Ofsted inspection in June which now rates John Cabot Academy as “requires improvement”, having dropped from its’ previous outstanding rating.

Bath Community Academy, another school in the chain, was declared in May to be inadequate by Ofsted, a decline in performance after four years of CLF management from a previous rating of “requires improvement”.

Within weeks of the publication of this report, the CLF announced that Bath Community Academy will be closing, sighting low student numbers as the reason. Is it this performance then, that Ferguson was referring to in that final council meeting?

Whilst the ever-repeated message that academies are outside of local control appears to have been amplified in Bristol, this is not the view of Michael Wilshaw, the head of Ofsted.

At an evidence-giving session last month, sat next to David Carter, Wilshaw told the cross-party group of MPs who sit on the Education Select Committee, that “engagement of local politicians is crucial and if things are going wrong they should weigh in”.

When Ferguson made his statement to council about the CLF, I genuinely think he believed it to be true – after all he has had a professional career in architecture and business, not education.

Worrying though that what Ferguson also demonstrated was that he and other politicians simply lacked the required expertise to ask fundamental questions.

An ability to test evidence presented to them would have revealed a truer reflection of current performance; but when an audience doesn’t know what questions to ask, what hope does it have of being able to scrutinise the answers?

Those of us with professional education backgrounds outside of the CLF first became aware that things were not quite as they were being presented when in January the threat of a strike at John Cabot was reported in the press.

This was a red flag. It is rare for teachers to strike – teachers in an – as then – Ofsted-rated “outstanding” school voting for unilateral action is almost unheard of.

We would also have been able to investigate current performance within the CLF. Schools are now required to published a large amount of performance data.

This action is, of course, also open to council officers working within the education department and should form a crucial aspect of the work of Bristol’s Learning City’, set up under Ferguson to oversee the needed expansion of secondary provision in the city. This board continues under newly elected mayor Marvin Rees. 

It is not for me to comment on the ability of those who govern the CLF to accurately and regularly monitor performance in schools for whom they are responsible. I leave that to Ofsted. 

Of John Cabot, Ofsted states “overall effectiveness of the school has declined since the previous inspection”, and that it must “improve the quality of leadership and management, including governance”.

It adds that “an external review of governance should be undertaken in order to assess how this aspect of leadership and management may be improved”.

Of Bath Community Academy, Ofsted writes: “Pupils have underachieved significantly over time.” It adds that “senior leaders did not anticipate this” and “involvement of the federation’s senior leaders has secured the school’s capacity to improve”. However, those same senior leaders hold overarching responsibility for its decline. 

Steve Taylor, the current CEO of the CLF, told the Bristol Post last week that it has “no plans to keep expanding”.

The latest board minutes for the trust from January records the following: “The board were being asked for their approval in principle of the CLF submitting an expression of interest for a new secondary school in east-central Bristol”.

This came following an invitation to bid by Bristol Learning City, of which David Carter is a member. Later in the same meeting the board also agreed to explore a new provision for “complex children” in east Bristol.

The CLF, having had the wind taken out of its expansion sails by these Ofsted reports, is unlikely to seek an enlargement of its current empire any time soon.

Local politicians, education officers and those who sit on Bristol Learning City need to reflect and consider how children of this city will be best served by their secondary schools into the future.

Continually repeating that academies are outside of local control is unacceptable, as is that schools have got better in Bristol. Having got better refers to the past and as these two Ofsted reports demonstrate, is not an indicator of performance in the present.

Education is about the future. Past reputations must not be used to support and bolster academy expansion. Analysis of current performance and an ability to maintain this into the future are fundamental aspects of good governance and decision-making.

How Marvin Rees proposes to ensure that he, the cabinet and our council can access high quality educational expertise has yet to be communicated.

But surely this episode reveals that continued reliance on that reported by officers and Bristol Learning City, both of whom considered the CLF in a position to continue expanding as late as January, is a flawed strategy. 

Without the required change, I fear the 46 per cent of our city’s children not currently achieving five A*-C GCSEs, including English and maths, will continue to be failed by those very people tasked to create a system that enables them to achieve.

Christine Townsend is a former teacher and stood as an independent mayoral candidate this year

Read more: Meet the mayor candidate: Christine Townsend