Academy performance questioned in new report

There is no compelling evidence to suggest that academy status improves pupil performance, a new report from the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) argues.

Studying the association between academy status for primary and secondary schools and their pupils’ attainment in the Key Stage 2 tests and GCSE exams from last year, NFER claims that there is no significant difference between the performance of primary academies and maintained schools.

The government has announced its ambition for every school to become an academy by 2020, despite backtracking on forced academisation. As of the start of February, 65 per cent of secondary and 18 per cent of primary schools were academies.

The research investigated academies that have been open between two and five years with local authority maintained schools with similar characteristics using several attainment measures.

Any differences were deemed, on the whole, minor and insignificant, with no short term benefits noted. However, the report did note that academies are significantly more likely to be rated by Ofsted as ‘Outstanding’ compared to similar maintained schools, although this finding is less robust for converter academies because many have not been re-inspected since becoming an academy.

Lesley Duff, NFER’s director of research, commented: “The government retains an ambition for every school to become an academy despite taking a step back from using legislation to achieve this conversion by 2020. There are many reasons for maintained schools to convert to academy status but ultimately schools exist to educate and improve outcomes for all children and young people.

“As far as measures of attainment go, the benefits of academisation have yet to be demonstrated. This means it is crucial to continue evaluating the impact that structural changes are having on schools in order to inform future policy developments.”