Damian Hinds will meet MPs to discuss the “savage cuts” proposed by a prominent university-backed academy chain.
The University of Chester Academies Trust today confirmed that it is considering cutting 24 support staff and 19 teaching roles across its seven schools in Cheshire and Staffordshire.
The trust is also in discussions with the Department for Education about the potential rebrokering of some of its schools to new sponsors.
Was this the week that the academies dream died?
Between Damian Hinds’ accountability announcements 10 days ago at NAHT conference and then Friday’s DfE response to the Green Paper consultation on faith and grammar schools, I’m beginning to think so.
Why? Well it’s been a very significant few days of education policy.
A trust that runs four primary schools spent thousands of pounds on overseas trips for its leaders, more than £1,000 on two hotel rooms for two nights and almost £10,000 on Facebook adverts for a free school that has not yet been set up, according to allegations in a draft investigation seen by the Observer.
In a case that will raise further questions about the financial management of academies, an inquiry into Silver Birch Academy Trust claims it spent £6,117 on a fact-finding trip to China and New Zealand for its chief executive Patricia Davies, a former headteacher of the year, and her deputy. The draft investigation states that the trust allegedly spent £99,000 refurbishing a former caretaker’s house, later to be rented out to a member of staff. It claimed £10,000 of work had been done without quotes having been obtained, while no rent had been paid.
It alleges the trust spent £3.26m on services from six companies without providing evidence of any contracts having been signed. It also alleges that the trust had contracts with four consultancy companies, together worth £326,044, without the work having gone out to tender. Meanwhile, a school within the trust spent £1,064 on two rooms for two nights at the Hyatt Regency hotel, Birmingham, with £507 of this for a room where the guest did not turn up.
A Runcorn free school once hailed by David Cameron has been slated by the education watchdog and graded ‘inadequate’ amid warnings of pupils not fulfilling their potential.
Ofsted focused its sharpest criticism on Sandymoor School’s GCSE performance, which was ‘among the worst nationally’ in 2016 and 2017.
