There is, it seems, a cynical and Machiavellian game being played by the Department for Education. Its rules are secret and deniable but what is going on is far too organised to be mere serendipity. The game might be called Academy Ally.
As Smarden Primary School - a tiny Kent village school - celebrated becoming the 1000th converter academy, many were struck by the thought that, trumpet the success as loudly as you might, a thousand is a small proportion of the nation's schools. And we all know that this flagship, adorned with the bunting of freedom and flying the colours of independence, needs to gather a much bigger flotilla if it is to fulfil the dreams of its admiral.
And this is where the game comes in. It looks like this; the DfE looks at the figures of those schools in challenging areas and leans very heavily on their local authority. The local authority, bowing to the pressure and threat to its independence, appears mob-handed on the school's doorstep, carries out a review and places the school in whatever is its equivalent to special measures, but with much shorter deadlines. Special Measures on steroids. It also breathes very heavily down the neck of the headteachers, with varying degrees of threat. This is not a nice place to be. Enter the white knight - a minor DfE minion, a political spokesman, a passing peer - who then says, 'don't let the local authority bully you, break free of their pressure and become an academy.'
This is exactly what happened at Smarden. Kent is an authority which, on the one hand is committed to supporting schools so they don't become academies but is using the other to beat up those schools who are struggling with meeting progress and attainment standards. Some officers have adopted a particularly bully-boy, intimidating approach. However, Smarden won a highly publicised visit from Lord Jonathan Hill, a junior education minister who promised heads that schools can stop officials 'breathing down their necks' by becoming academies. And, from the bottom of an LA officer's boot, that suddenly looks very attractive.
It's not just Kent. My colleagues and I are working with schools in several authorities where the game is being played. There are a lot of scared heads out there and a lot of schools are feeling the pinch. They point the LA to satisfactory Ofsted reports, often reporting good leadership, to be told that 'the Secretary of State doesn't care about Ofsted reports!'
So, not by will but by fear, schools will slowly be added to the thousand to enjoy the new freedoms promised them. Does that freedom include not meeting floor targets, even in the most challenging areas? What do you think?
