Schools Bill Attacked by 'Blair Babe' MP

Blog 32. Dame Siobhain McDonagh MP opposes restraints on academies and attacks Labour policy in second reading debate

James Whiting (General Secretary SEA) defends the Schools and Child Well-Being Bill and takes apart Mcdonagh’s arguments for the status quo. Her speech is here.

The power of the academies lobby appears to have no bounds. Siobhain Mcdonagh’s reprehensible attempt to undermine the Schools and Child Well-Being Bill on behalf of academy bosses like her friend Lord Harris has to fail. In her speech on the second reading, she has revealed herself to be no friend of Labour when it comes to education, but instead has earned plaudits from Michael Gove, Nick Timothy, Neil O’ Brien and assorted right wing nutters on X. Her speech also shows a lack of understanding of how a curriculum works in a school, and even the structures she is trying to defend. She also appeared to abstain on the Tory wrecking amendment to the bill. As a constituent of Siobhain’s and a retired school ‘leader’and inspector plus local Chair of Governors I feel I am in a strong position to comment.

First, I want to celebrate the achievements of the students and teachers in the two Harris academies and the St Marks C of E Academy she refers to in her speech. The recent turn around in St Marks is indeed remarkable and congratulations are in order. As for the Harris schools their performance data and OFSTED reports have indeed been strong for some time. However, there are legitimate questions over how the Harris chain operates to achieve these which I will refer to.

She starts her speech by postulating that the massive improvement in London education during the Blair era, when she was first elected as an MP, was down to academisation. This may well have been the case in Merton. After all the authority manifestly failed to improve schools in the working class east of the borough and she is right to draw attention to their poor performance. She neglects to remind MPs though, that she was a member of Merton’s ruling Labour administration at the time. Academisation does not explain London becoming one of the most successful regions educationally in England as this policy was implemented across the whole country. Unlike in Merton, relatively few academies were started up in London under Blair. The main driver for improvement was undoubtedly London Challenge which matched a successful school with a less successful one with a similar intake to share practice. Academisation as Bridget Phillipson recognises has led to MATS ‘hoarding’ best practice rather than sharing it to improve quality across the board.

Her first attempt at criticism of the bill is over the proposal that all schools including academies, must follow the national curriculum. My first response is that a curriculum is not national if over 70 per cent of secondaries do not have to follow it. So is she arguing for no national curriculum at all? This would be the logical position. In reality most schools including academies do follow it for most of the time because GCSE syllabuses and primary school SATS are based on it. In her speech she then goes on to quote from an OFSTED report on a Harris school’s ‘aspirational curriculum …tailored to pupils’ individual needs’ and suggests that this is a result of the academy freedoms currently in place, An LA secondary in the same borough received this comment in their ‘outstanding’ report:- ‘Leaders have developed a curriculum that is highly ambitious. This includes high-quality support and aspirations for pupils with SEND’. They teach the national curriculum. Siobhain has confused the national curriculum framework with how a school breaks it down for its pupils. OFSTED are commenting on the latter in both cases. She goes on to claim (with ‘hear, hear’ from the Tories opposite) that forcing academies to teach the national curriculum would remove their ability to plan for those with additional needs. Really? If the national curriculum is that damaging it needs removing from all schools.

Her second attack is around the removal of forced academisation. The Bill proposes that a ‘failing’ school (as designated by OFSTED) should not automatically be forced to join a MAT (not an academy Siobhain!). Putting SEA policy on OFSTED and academisation aside for a moment, this measure disassociates the inspectorate from pressures to be ‘lenient’ because the consequences of an inadequate judgement is automatic academisation and subequent loss of career for a head teacher. This was a factor behind the death of Ruth Perry, the Reading primary school head. The link between a failing judgement and academisation should be broken. We would oppose academisation per se but at least this change gives schools a chance to put things right and for communities to campaign for the outcome they want to see.

The Bill rightly proposes to reign in some of the freedoms enjoyed by academies so that local authorities can plan effectively for all the children, including those with SEND, in their areas. Currently in London because of the housing and benefits crisis, families are leaving in droves. This means that local authorities are having to close their often, excellent primaries because they have no powers to even restrict admissions to primary academies let alone close them. Furthermore, multi-academy trusts (MATS) have become adept at refusing admission to some SEND pupils on the grounds they cannot meet their needs. They even like to gain a reputation for not being inclusive so that parents with SEND children try to avoid sending their children to them. Giving individual providers control over admissions makes no sense if we want the system to be fair to all. Phillipson, incidentally, is mirroring Blair who reigned in the freedoms grant maintained schools received under the Tories.

Siobhain has always been the champion of Harris in the constituency and in Merton borough even though Lord Harris until recently, and he may well have reverted, has been a Tory supporter and donor. His trust when he dies on will pass to his children – a bizarre by-product of the MATS system. We do know too that the chief executive Sir Dan Moynihan, earns £490,000 and that chains like Harris spend far more on out of the classroom staff than local authorities. It is very hard though for campaigners and journalists to get to the truth behind the operation of the Harris MAT. It is true that their performance as reported in the league tables is almost always strong. But at what cost? Periodically we hear complaints of off rolling and teacher burn out and these have emerged in ‘Education Uncovered’ and ‘The Guardian’. It is incredibly difficult to get information about the number of permanent exclusions across the chain. Many would agree that exclusions for violence and drug dealing are justified, but Harris Merton’s behaviour policy states a pupil can be permanently excluded for ‘persistent breaches’ of it. This opens the door to excluding pupils who don’t fit in. Whilst we would like to see MATS disbanded, the Bill’s provisions for inspecting MATS should enable transparency and more accountability. Harris will have to make its figures public.

Siobhain’s intervention has just encouraged the right-wing education cabal to claim that the policies responsible for ‘a ‘rise in standards’ are being abandoned. We question in previous editions of this blog that there has been such a rise and their policies are certainly not the key to success. Marketisation and competition always create losers as well as winners. We welcome Bridget Phillipson’s new emphasis on both well-being and co-operation. We are pleased she is holding her ground. It’s just that we think existing structures get in the way of those laudable aims.