The Department for Education published a White Paper entitled Educational Excellence Everywhere yesterday, 17 March, announcing the educational reforms it intends to carry out over the next five years. Despite setting up an Excellent alliteration opportunity, the DfE has made no mention of Equality in this 125-page document except once, in passing, in the context of the need to create more opportunities for part-time work and job-sharing.

CSIE welcomes some of the plans laid out in the White Paper, especially the DfE’s intention of establishing “unapologetically high expectations” of all children; as long as it is safe to assume that all means all and that expectations will be realistic and shared with children and their families. We also welcome plans to ensure that Initial Teacher Education and continuing professional development adequately equip all teachers to respond to “special educational needs”, building capacity in schools, building a diverse workforce and increasing diversity in leadership.

At the same time, some of the suggestions in this document leave us confused or disappointed. The description of a “world-leading curriculum for all”, expected to make our society “fairer, more cohesive, productive and innovative” makes no mention of educating young people away from prejudice or of helping them learn about diversity and human rights. CSIE believes these should form an integral part of a curriculum fit for the 21st century.

Further, the White Paper states that Ofsted will no longer be concerned with process; instead, inspections will be focused squarely on outcomes. It is not clear whether such outcomes will include levels of bullying or other evidence of a safe learning community where all can achieve. If the only outcomes to be considered are related to exam results, one could argue that this reflects an alarmingly narrow understanding of achievement.

We welcome the intention to increase diversity in the workforce but are deeply disappointed to see that the Department’s understanding of diversity in the workforce is limited to addressing flexible working through part-time work and job sharing (p27). Diversity in leadership (p49) makes appropriate reference to some of the protected characteristics of the Equality Act 2010, but makes no mention of disabled school leaders. These are serious omissions which seem inconsistent with the letter as well as the spirit of the law. We look forward to the publication of the DfE’s statistical release “School Workforce in England – November 2015” later this year, and to hear the Department’s response to this evidence, in the context of its obligations under the public sector equality duty.

The “clearly defined role for local authorities” includes ensuring that the needs of vulnerable pupils are met, but we cannot see how local authorities can be expected to ensure this, considering they are no longer permitted to set up new schools.

Above all, we are gravely concerned at the announcement that all state funded schools in England will be forced to convert to academies and that the implication is that this will lead to school improvement. Even if there was evidence to support this claim, a democratic government would be expected to carry out a thorough consultation before implementing such extensive and irreversible reforms. Worse still, the evidence available contradicts the claim that converting all schools to academies would lead to school improvement. Ofsted has expressed major concerns about eight of the nine large Multi Academy Trusts it has inspected; we present some of the summary findings below, with thanks to Reclaiming Education for drawing our attention to them.

• Ofsted report on Academy Enterprise Trust (January 2016): “After operating for nearly eight years, the Trust is failing too many pupils.” “The outcomes of the focused inspections failed to demonstrate that the Trust is consistently improving its academies.”
• Ofsted report on CfBT Multi-Academy Trust (May 2015): “CfBT took on too many academies too quickly. The trust did not have a clear rationale for the selection of schools, a strategy for creating geographical clusters or a plan to meet academies’ different needs. As a result, standards are too low.”
• Ofsted report on Collaborative Academies Trust (March 2015):

“Too many academies have not improved since joining the trust. Of the five academies that have had a full inspection since joining the trust, only one has improved its inspection grade compared with its predecessor school. Two have remained the same and two have declined.”

• Ofsted report on E-ACT (February 2016): “Nevertheless, the quality of provision for too many pupils in E-ACT academies is not good enough.” and “Pupils from poor backgrounds do not do well enough. These pupils make less progress than other pupils nationally. This is an area of serious concern.”
• Ofsted report on Kemnal Academies Trust (July 2014): “Too many academies remain less than good and a number of academies have remained stuck at grade 3 when re-inspected.” “The proportion of pupils reaching the expected level in reading, writing and mathematics at the end of Key Stage 2 remains below average.”
• Ofsted report on Oasis Multi Academy Trust (March 2015): “Across the trust, some groups of pupils do not achieve well. Disadvantaged pupils, particularly boys, make significantly less progress than their peers nationally.” “The trust’s leaders have prioritised specific areas of improvement, including the poor achievement of disadvantaged boys. However, there is no evidence of an overall strategy or plan that focuses on these particular issues.”
• Ofsted report on School Partnership Trust Academies (March 2016): “The impact of the Trust’s work in bringing about improvement where it is most needed has been too slow. Where standards have been intractably low for some time, the Trust is not driving significant, sustained improvement.” “The standard of education provided by the Trust is not good enough in around 40% of its academies inspected so far.”
• Ofsted report on The Education Fellowship (June 2015): “There is no clear record of improvement in the trust’s academies and standards across the trust are unacceptably variable. In around three quarters of the academies, standards are poor.” “Standards declined in five of the eight primary academies in 2014.”
• Ofsted report on Wakefield City Academies Trust (May 2015): “All four academies that were subject to recent section 5 inspections have improved their overall effectiveness by at least a grade.”

Neil Carmichael MP, Chair of the Education Committee, issued a statement on 16 March, in response to the Budget announcement that the DfE plans to convert all state schools in England into academies. Commenting on the lack of scrutiny on Multi Academy Trusts, Mr Carmichael said: “The Government will face significant challenges in implementing these proposals.”

“Access to a great education is not a luxury but a right for everyone” concludes the Secretary of State in her foreword to the White Paper. We could not agree more, in fact you could have taken these words right out of our mouths. There are plenty of Excellent phrases in this foreword and throughout the document: indeed a good education is an “engine for social justice” and “investing in our education system is an investment in the future of our nation”. But rhetoric is not enough. This government and the coalition government before it have been accused of dismantling the state education system. The fact remains that undertaking such extensive and irreversible reforms with little or no consultation is inconsistent with democratic values.

A petition has been set up expressing a range of concerns at the proposal to convert all schools to academies and demanding that the government holds a full public inquiry, taking into account educational research and the views of teachers, parents and students.