Education and Local Services — House of Commons, 2017-06-27
Topic: Education
Justin Piers Richard Madders (Labour, Centre-left): First, let me congratulate all Members who have made their excellent maiden speeches today, particularly my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Alex Norris). He has very big shoes to fill, but I know that the experience and dedication that he has shown in local government will stand him in good stead in the days ahead Let me state for the record that I have declarable interests in that my wife is the Cabinet member for children and young people in our local authority of Cheshire West and Chester and education is the subject matter under discussion today A common concern raised with me on the doorstep during the election was funding for local schools, which I and many other Members have mentioned in the House on previous occasions and again today, but I want to focus today on the lack of accountability in our education system. Earlier this month, the University of Chester’s academy in Ellesmere Port was rated as inadequate by Ofsted, and the sad fact is that that is not the first time the school has failed an Ofsted inspection, having been rated inadequate in 2013. Although there have been improvements since then, we are now sadly back to square one We need to do something different, but the way the matter has been dealt with so far demonstrates a lacuna in Government policy towards failing academies. Whether it is an oversight or an ideological attachment to academies that does not concede they could ever have issues with their performance, the devastating reality is that the only prescription to remedy these failings is more of the same. My constituents deserve better than more of the same. As Members will know, there is no mechanism for an academy to return to local authority control. Academies deemed to be failing or underperforming may be transferred to another multi-academy trust or sponsor, or made subject to other intervention from the relevant regional schools commissioner—who, for reasons I am yet to understand, thinks that Ellesmere Port is in the west midlands However, whatever the theoretical options are, I rather suspect that there are not scores of other sponsors queuing up to take over. If one does emerge, what guarantees do we have they will be any better than the current sponsors, that they will have any local knowledge or connection or that they will be accountable to the people they serve? The answer is of course none, yet we have a ready-made answer just waiting by the phone for a call—the local authority, with 90% of its schools rated as good or outstanding, a wealth of knowledge and experience, and, of course, the local connections that I believe will be vital in restoring public confidence in the school I know that the vast majority of teachers and support staff do a fantastic job in trying circumstances and that there are many at the academy who are working incredibly hard and doing their best, so it is important to note that this is a criticism not of the staff at the school but of its leadership and of a system that cannot deal with those failings. There is no doubt that if this was a local authority-controlled school an army of DFE advisers would have been in years ago extolling the virtues of academisation. Indeed, I know of one local primary that was positively encouraged to have the university as its sponsor—I am sure it is relieved that it resisted that particular temptation But this is the nub: we all want to see school standards improve and the best for our children, but the system designed to drive improvement is currently entrenching poor performance and underachievement. Although the Queen’s Speech has mercifully not included yet another round of tinkering with school structures, its big omission in education was any attempt to deal with the Select Committee on Education’s proposals and introduce a way in which failing academies and chains can be held to account. The sooner that triumph of ideology over reality is corrected, the better At the moment, we have a failing school and nobody taking responsibility for that failure. There is not even a governing body at the academy, and therefore no channel for staff, parents or the community to express their views and, critically, no accountability for the serial failings of leadership. The Queen’s Speech says that the "government will continue to work to ensure that every child has the opportunity to attend a good school" It is about time that the Government put aside dogma and came up with proposals to actually make that happen. The education of our children is too important for them to continue to be let down in this way.