An education chief has slammed “absurd” Labour plans to hand more power to councils to cut pupil places after his trust fought off a local authority bid to halve intake at schools – all of which are rated “good” or “outstanding”. The new Labour Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill is currently going through debate in Parliament and, if passed, could see local councils given greater power over school intakes, including at academies, if an objection to the teaching arrangement is upheld.
And if there is a dispute the Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson could be given the power to “intervene” to decide any cases. Now it has emerged one local authority, Norfolk County Council, has already attempted to order the Inspiration Trust to slash numbers by up to half across four of its schools, which are rated “good” and “outstanding”.
Inspiration Trust CEO Gareth Stevens revealed the multi-academy trust (MAT) had been able to fight the cuts, but he told educational news site Schools Week that he feared Labour’s bill could force councils into similar “absurd” strategies.
He told the publication: “My overarching concern is that the proposed bill would enable [similar] poorly judged decisions by local authorities to drive down educational standards by limiting the capacity of exceptional schools in an effort to sustain underperforming institutions.
Mr Stevens added that his MAT had been able to defend itself against the local council proposals, but he said the Labour bill could give councils the power to enforce an “absurd strategy” that would “force us to reduce the number of places available in some of Norfolk’s highest-performing schools”.
He said: “Given that Norfolk as a whole ranks 141st out of 143 local authorities at key stage 2, it is entirely nonsensical to halve the number of available places at this ‘outstanding’ school.”
Norfolk County Council said it had put forward similar proposals to cut intakes at “good” and “outstanding” state maintained schools.
Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson has been accused of trying to “dumb down the curriculum and lower standards further” under her proposed reforms to schools.
Conservative Shadow education minister Neil O’Brien said Ms Phillipson has “no positive vision” as he bemoaned moves to no longer support some subjects for state school pupils, including the decision to end funding for the Latin Excellence Programme from this month.
He described the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill as the “worst of all” because it “takes a wrecking ball to 40 years of cross-party reform” of England’s schools.
The Bill would require all state schools, including academies, to teach the national curriculum. It would also allow councils to open new schools which are not academies, and it would end the forced academisation of schools run by local authorities which are identified as a concern by Ofsted.
All teachers would be part of the same core pay and conditions framework, whether they work in a local authority-run school or an academy, under changes made by the Bill. The Government also plans to bolster child protection, with a new register of all home-schooled children in England.
Speaking in the House of Commons, Education Minister Catherine McKinnell said: “It is essential that every child and every family has the certainty that they will be able to access a good local school, a school that will set high expectations and standards for all of our children, enabling them to achieve and thrive.”
Ms McKinnell said the system would be designed to “support and challenge all schools to deliver for our children”, adding: “A rich and broad curriculum delivered by expert trained teachers, with an attractive pay and conditions offer that attracts and retains the staff that our children need.”
She went on to say the Government’s reforms would create “a floor but no ceiling” on what schools can offer.
