Department for Education and Skills Response to the Second Annual Report from the PricewaterhouseCoopers Evaluation of the Academies Programme Foreword by the Secretary of State for Education and Skills The Government welcomes the publication of the Second Annual Report from the five-year evaluation of the Academies Programme. It is based on the evaluation of 11 of the Academies open in spring 2004 and 3 schools whose pupils were about to transfer into Academies the following September. Academies are located in areas of deprivation and low educational standards. Although it is early days in the Academies Programme, the Report concludes that Academies are highly popular with parents and are beginning to make solid progress in raising educational standards: 87% of parents are satisfied with the quality of education provided to their child at the Academy, and four fifths of parents now attend parents evenings every time that they happen. 80% stated that the Academy was the school of choice for their children. 90% of parents report that most pupils like going to the Academy and that their children enjoy attending the school. Sponsors are seen by parents and teachers to be adding real value – 82% of staff agree that the sponsor’s resources, contribution and leadership have made a positive impact on pupils’ learning. 97% of staff think that the principal really believes that the Academy can make a difference to pupils’ learning whatever their family background. Challenges remain, and the evaluation has identified areas where further action is needed to improve the Programme. As well as continuing to rigorously evaluate the Academies Programme, we will act on the evaluation findings to build on identified good practice. 3 Academies represent bold reform to tackle extreme educational weakness and failure. Many Academies are direct replacements of seriously failing schools, inheriting pupils and staff from those schools. Success in these circumstances takes time, and there are bound to be some early failures. This was also the case with the City Technology Colleges (CTCs), on whose experience we have drawn in developing the Academy model. Almost all of those that replaced failing schools experienced early difficulties and challenges, but virtually all became, over time, high performing schools. We will maintain a thorough on-going evaluation of the Academies Programme. On the evidence now available – including this evaluation, and also the experience of CTCs over a 15 year period – we believe that the investment in Academies, in areas where children and communities have been failed for years, is right. Academies are one of the measures we are taking to live up to our responsibility to do our utmost to ensure high quality secondary education in areas of low standards and inadequate opportunities for parents and children. They sit alongside a range of other investments and reforms including big increases in support and rewards for the teaching profession, focused especially on schools facing the greatest challenges. The great popularity of Academies with parents is of particular significance. It is documented not simply by this evaluation, but also by the extent to which the existing 17 Academies and the 10 to be opened in September are oversubscribed. In September 2004 the Academies then open, for which data is available, were oversubscribed by an average of 62%. In some cases the oversubscription is massive. For example in London for admission in September 2005, 537 parents applied as first choice for the 180 year 7 places at Mossbourne Academy, Hackney, and 1137 pupils named the Academy as one of their schools of choice; 748 parents applied as first choice for the 180 year 7 places at the City of London Academy, Southwark, and 3246 parents named the Academy as one of their school choices; and in Lambeth 1257 parents named the new Lambeth Academy as one of their school choices. These figures all strongly support the findings of the evaluation which is positive on virtually every measure of parental satisfaction and engagement. Academies are achieving this through funding that is fair in comparison with other schools. Their recurrent revenue funding is provided on exactly the same basis as other state schools in their localities. As for capital funding, our Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme will rebuild and remodel all secondary schools in England over the next 15 years. Schools which become Academies receive priority because of the imperative to tackle failure and deprivation as the Government’s overriding duty. 4 We therefore intend to fulfil our commitment to have at least 200 Academies open or in the pipeline by 2010. We will continue to ensure that they are rigorously evaluated, so that best practice spreads rapidly, problems are addressed, and there is full public accountability. We have commissioned PricewaterhouseCoopers to undertake a five-year evaluation of Academies. This and future evaluation reports from PricewaterhouseCoopers, and Ofsted’s and the Department’s own monitoring of Academies’ performance are all crucial elements of that process. The following paper sets out our detailed response to the findings of the PricewaterhouseCoopers Report. We will also shortly be setting out a new framework for taking forward the Academies Programme as a whole, as the Programme expands to meet the Government’s manifesto commitment. This will include proposals to more closely align investment in Academies with the BSF programme. The Report demonstrates the real progress that the first Academies have begun to make in turning around the life chances of thousands of children in the most deprived areas of the country. There is much more to do. But we have a sound basis on which to build. RUTH KELLY SECRETARY OF STATE FOR EDUCATION AND SKILLS 5 1. Context (A) THE EVOLUTION OF THE ACADEMIES PROGRAMME The findings emerging from PricewaterhouseCoopers Evaluation of the Academies Programme provide further substantial evidence of the progress of Academies. Although the Programme was announced in March 2000, and the first three Academies opened only in September 2002, the Academy model is far from untried or unproven. It builds on the experience of the 15 City Technology Colleges (CTCs) created in the late 1980s and early 1990s, focusing the model more specifically and rigorously on areas of deprivation and low inherited educational standards. CTCs are all ability schools, many of them located in areas of disadvantage. In 2004 an average of 85% of CTC pupils achieved 5 or more GCSEs at grades A* to C. This compares to a national average of 54%. CTCs’ ‘value added’ performance is similarly outstanding. Professor David Jesson’s study of Specialist Schools showed that in 2004 their average value added from Key Stage 2 (age 11) to GCSE was +12 percentage points.1 This compared to an average value added of +1.8 percentage points for all non-selective specialist schools and -1.8 percentage points for non-specialist schools. Furthermore, the latest Jesson study of pupils eligible for Free School Meals (FSM) in CTCs showed that 8 of the 15 CTCs had FSM eligibility above the then national average of 14.5%, with an average value added score amongst these CTCs of +14 percentage points.2 1 Educational outcomes and value added by specialist schools – 2004 by Professor David Jesson and David Crossley in association with Sir Cyril Taylor and Jane Ware produced by the Specialist Schools Trust. 2 Educational outcomes and value added by specialist schools – 2003 by Professor David Jesson in association with Sir Cyril Taylor and Jane Ware produced by the Specialist Schools Trust, available at www.schoolsnetwork.org.uk/ content/articles/1568/fulldoc.pdf. 7 The CTC experience is a sound precedent for the Academies Programme, and it was decisive in persuading the Government to launch the Academies Programme in 2000. However, there are key differences between the CTC and Academy programmes. CTCs were not exclusively focused on areas of high disadvantage; Academies are all located in such areas as a matter of policy. CTCs were also mostly established with opposition from Local Education Authorities (LEAs), whereas every Academy so far established enjoys the support of the relevant LEA, with several LEAs – including Hackney and Lambeth – pioneering multiple Academies enthusiastically as part of a radical vision to transform secondary education in areas previously by-words for low standards and parental dissatisfaction. Early expectations of the Academies Programme should similarly be informed by the experience of CTCs. Seven CTCs replaced existing schools, some with pupils and teachers transferred across, and took a few years to transform their inheritance. For example, Harris CTC in south London – which replaced a seriously failing school – recorded only 27% of pupils with five or more good GCSEs in its first two years, and experienced significant transitional management and staffing problems. Within five years the results were up to 64%; last year they stood at 86%. Lord Harris of Peckham – the sponsor of Harris CTC – is sponsoring three of the new Academies. Similarly, Bacon’s CTC, in Docklands, which replaced a declining school, started in 1991 with only 11% gaining 5+ A*-C; now the figure is 75%, and it is the highest performing state school in Southwark with 1062 applications for 180 places in September 2004. Thomas Telford CTC has achieved 100% 5+ A*-C for the last five years. These CTCs are far from unique; many others have shown similar improvements. Their experience proves that, far from being an experiment, Academies are the radical extension (in areas of low educational outcomes) of a model that clearly works. (B) INCREASING NUMBERS OF ACADEMIES AND INCREASING NUMBERS OF SPONSORS Expansion of the Programme is on course and the Department believes it will be able to meet its target of 200 Academies open or in the pipeline by 2010, with 60 of these in London: 17 Academies are already open.