The so-called “schools’ revolution” is a damp squib

By Richard Watts / @richardwatts01

The government’s schools revolution is beginning to look more like Paris 1968 than Russia 1917 – a lot of noise followed by a damp squib, rather than the real thing.

A few weeks ago Michael Gove’s department for education claimed that there had been over 700 applications to set up free schools and that over 1100 schools had applied to become academies.

These were large numbers and, if true, would certainly count as a revolution in the school system.

However, it turns out that only 153 schools had applied to become academies. It also transpired that there have only been 62 applications to start a ‘free school’.

The Tory-Liberal spin on the number of applications to be academies unravelled pretty quickly. Three Islington schools were on the first list of ‘applicants’. Asking around it became clear that all three had simply tried to find out more information and were horrified that the school had been classed as an applicant. In fact the government spin about the academies list created some problems for the schools involved as parents, teachers and governors were quite interested to know why they hadn’t been consulted on the school’s ‘application’ to become an academy.

Similarly with free schools, the government has massively ramped-up expectations about how many groups are interested in setting up new schools. But a quick check of the very helpful map on the government funded New Schools Network website shows the vast majority of these are individual members of the public who’ve registered an interest with the organisation. Maybe because they want to set up a new school, maybe they’re an opponent trying to find out more information or perhaps they’ve got an academic interest in the subject. If only just over 60 applications have been made and the difficulties being faced by the most high profile ‘free school’ campaign are typical, very few will be opening any time soon.

Mr Gove clearly has trouble with lists. First the screw-ups over which schools were having their much-needed rebuilding work cancelled, followed shortly by conflating expressions of interest in setting up a free school with actual applications and then by massively over claiming about interest in becoming an academy.

Once is unfortunate, twice is a problem but three wrong lists in as many months begins to look like a pattern.

In less than 100 days Mr Gove has gone from being one of the Tory-Liberal government’s best assets to its biggest liability.

I think the Tory-Liberals realised quite quickly after the election that there wasn’t massive demand from teachers, parents or schools to opt-out of the current system.

Schools already enjoy a very large degree of autonomy from councils and only a few very entrepreneurial Heads have shown any desire to get more power – and these have mostly been satisfied by various other opt-out schemes down the years. My experience in this job so far is that the vast majority of schools and heads appreciate the support that councils can provide and have no desire to opt-out of a system that provides a help and support when things go right and a safety net when they don’t.

Lots of teachers want more professional autonomy but don’t see why they have to change employers to get it.

Similarly many parents – rightly – demand better schools in their area, but this is a very different thing from dedicating much of your life to setting a new one up. Parents already have plenty of opportunities to get involved and improve schools through joining governing bodies, which actually run schools. If the government ran a campaign to get more highly connected and professional parents to become school governors we could all enthusiastically support it.

Faced by this level of indifference and even hostility to their ‘revolution’ the government has attempted a confidence trick where it has tried to convince schools that opting-out is inevitable and they may as well get on with it. The highly spun and exaggerated levels of interest in opting-out were a key part of that ‘inevitability’ strategy.

To a degree it was working. Heads of outstanding schools I spoke to were beginning to look over their shoulder to see who else might become an academy and the Association of Directors of Children’s Services was beginning to say that if lots of schools were going to opt-out the government should just make it compulsory.

I think this will now stop as the revelation that the government’s revolution is barely getting off the ground will give confidence to those who believe schools will improve faster by co-operating, rather than competing with each other.

As revolutions go, this one has hardly left the student union bar.