There is growing concern at the government’s insistence on forced academisation of schools across the country. As portfolio holder for children and young people in Bradford, having visited several schools where achievement levels are now being driven up from a low base I am now very concerned that the current policy framework is in fact damaging the prospects for improving outcomes for children. It risks undermining leadership on the part of heads and of local authorities. The aim has to be to urgently lift the aspirations and achievements of many of our most vulnerable children.

The importance of leadership in schools is accepted: we need good leaders to make the big move into schools where there have been problems, low aspirations, internal issues or a mix of issues, which often include a serious lack of understanding of the local community, parents and the context within which a school operates in.

I meet many heads who have chosen to lead schools facing big challenges rather than the comfortable, well-performing schools they have previously moved in. Most have a leadership qualification and a deputy headship under their belt and are keen to take on the multifaceted challenge we call ‘turnaround’. We need these leaders to make that leap and support them. We are in danger of choking off the supply of leaders.

This involves challenging years of low standards, internal staffing issues, governance problems, and often a complete failure to understand and work with parents and the local community. There are big issues including widespread disengagement and poverty. It’s tough and demanding and does not all happen in a flash; it’s firm year-on-year improvement we need, and it is  that approach that holds over time, not quick fixes.

These leaders and their teams are really lifting standards and making clear progress. If they were not then we have to deal with it. But where the evidence is clear that progress is taking place and making a real difference, we should get behind these schools and support them.

What the policy of forced academisation has begun to do is make many heads feel that their entire career is on the line for not being able to for example transform the achievements of a cohort of children who came in years before their appointment to the precise target.  Or to deal with massive turnover of pupils due to housing changes in the area. Improving performance itself is felt to count for little by the DfEE  Officials enforcing the agenda on governors and heads as the targeting of such schools is seen a form of mugging. There is no doubt we need to be firm on standards, and progress, but ignoring the clear path of progress in order to target conversions seem to be more about securing numbers of academies than improving local schools.

This policy has even had the counterproductive (from the government’s point of view) effect shifting academy statutes from being mainly an intervention tool and thereby causing many potential converter academies to pause for thought.

Instead of encouraging and supporting the leaders we need to go into the schools facing challenge we are creating disincentive, an example being the  accreditation for and outstanding leader is removed once they take up a role in an ‘underperforming school’ despite that being the place I would want such a leader to be. I fear what we now have is a toxic mix of fear and uncertainty with children and parents caught up in the middle.

Similarly, we must expect local elected members to assume a leadership role, rather than see them circumvented and let off the hook.

I and fellow elected members representing wards with schools where achievement levels are far too low have been working to get this agenda addressed for some time. So the intimation from the government that there is a collusion of silence is frankly offensive. Opposing the method is different from denying the problem.

It is vital that the council and local elected members hone in on performance and how to get effective solutions on the ground in place as fast as possible. Not to micromanage but to target the performance issues and then help secure locality based solutions and to hold the system to account to the public.

If localism is to mean anything here it is the ability to connect and engage all the influences around schooling and parenting in the community. That way we lift the aspirations around the school and its community. However, it is clear that centralist rigid models are now getting in the way of that task.

In any service improvement task knowing the context is vital, but let’s not muddle that issue with making excuses for failure. I know many schools that massively outperformed their context of poverty, and have turned around their school, in partnership with a wide range of services and local leaders, elected members being a significant part of that.

Let us not forget also there were massive cuts to the services provided via councils to help improve schools in difficulty, so in the cold climate we are in we need to find new ways of riding the change at a local level.

The argument needs to be made for a better approach. The option of locally designed plans built upon cooperation and support on a non-dogmatic basis is being damaged – the insistence of ‘one tool’ policy is, I believe, limiting what can be achieved. It means we get behind the leadership and partners that drive improvement, and not be constricted by dogma.

To deal with this challenge we need to be able to have the ability to pull the best mix of approaches and partners appropriate to each schools and community, and be held to account for that. That may involve trust schools, collaborative networks, merger or federations, and yes academy arrangements if that is felt to be the most effective.

The question is: are we serious enough to put both local ambition and trust into the agenda?

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Ralph Berry is portfolio holder for children and young people Bradford council. He tweets @CllrRalphBerry

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Photo: Conservative party