A report by the parliamentary public accounts committee into the government’s record on converting schools into academies found the Department for Education “did not pay enough attention” to ensuring its scrutiny of applicants was sufficiently rigorous.

Although the government is now strengthening its examination of the financial viability and improvement capabilities of would-be academy sponsors, it should have addressed these issues “much earlier”, the committee said, adding that recent interventions “do not go far enough”

MPs’ stern warning over ‘incoherent’ system and costly, ‘risky’ academisation

The DfE has given 53 academy trusts two weeks to justify paying high salaries last year.

The Education and Skills Funding Agency today published letters it this week sent to the trusts.

It told them they were “one of a very small number of trusts” that had paid either at least one person a salary of £150,000 or more, or at least two salaries between £100,000 and £150,000 in 2016-17.

It is the fourth batch of letters the ESFA has sent to academy trusts to demand explanations of high salaries, bringing the total that it has contacted to 213.

https://www.tes.com/news/names-53-academy-trusts-being-quizzed-high-pay

The Association of Directors of Children’s Services has released a report asking the government to let local authorities take over failing academies.

The group, who represent the local authority leaders responsible for schools in their areas, are concerned that lack of clarity about the council’s role in schools versus that of academy trusts means the system is “increasingly incoherent”.

https://schoolsweek.co.uk/directors-of-childrens-services-demand-las-be-allowed-to-take-over-failing-academies/

More than 80 pupils have left the roll of an academy in the eight months since it was taken over by an academy trust founded by the academies minister, Lord Theodore Agnew.

Great Yarmouth High School, which was put into special measures in May 2016, was taken over by the Inspiration Trust in September 2017 and renamed Great Yarmouth Charter Academy.

….

Now, a freedom of information request has revealed that between September 2017 and June 2018, the school notified Norfolk County Council that 81 of its pupils had been “removed” from its roll.

https://www.tes.com/news/exclusive-81-pupils-removed-academy-linked-minister