Update: The Schools Week website has followed up on this story. Also contains further updates
Kent County Council is pulling out of its management agreement with Swale Academy Trust for The North School, Ashford, at very short notice, formally serving that notice on 22nd July that the contract would end 31st August. Until that point it had providing no formal reason for its action, leaving considerable uncertainty about arrangements for September. This follows a similar decision by KCC last year at the Holmesdale School in Cuxton, which proved highly controversial, created chaos and which I covered extensively here and here.
Swale Academies Trust has managed The North since early 2014, after the school was placed in Special Measures by Ofsted in December 2013, although there is a considerable background to this as described here. Swale took the school back up to Good less than four years later, although managing to overspend some £200,000 pounds per year to achieve this, reducing a financial surplus of £244,000 to a large deficit of £768,357 at the end of this financial year, which now needs to be paid back. The Trust took robust actions to achieve the strong performance, its usual style and although the school suffered a slump in popularity, with for example the large staff turnover, it has now recovered this following the successful Ofsted Inspection.
There is no doubt that the school and the Swale Trust are now integrated to a considerable extent through: staffing - some teachers being Swale employees; school support; and the Swale culture, through combined training events for staff, etc. It could be that this is just a money saving decision, saving £150,000 per annum management fee, although there has been no such suggestion put forward, but there is surely a contract between the two parties in place. To tear this apart at such short notice will be immensely damaging to the school. Whatever, there will be no £200,000 extra to spend next year which is going to lead to considerable economies. According to Schools Week, SAT’s chief executive Jon Whitcombe has warned staff that the possibility of the school joining SAT is “now in doubt”.
It is reported that shockingly no information has been sent to parents about this damaging situation.
You will find further background here.
Two major issues which dominate any decision making by school governors, who will once again be in control subject to KCC rules are, firstly, the expensive PFI scheme that currently blocks The North from converting to become an academy, the agreed aim between KCC and Swale as explained below. Secondly, when Swale Academy Trust took over the school in 2014, it was carrying a financial surplus of £121,277 at year end in March. Since then the school has overspent heavily, to produce a deficit forecast to be £768,357 at the end of this financial year, which will now have to be eliminated which will require considerable cost cutting.
I assume that the decision by KCC has been made because Swale Academies Trust has successfully brought the school up to a Good Ofsted standard but may also take into account the annual overspend, but I had understood that the County was committed to the arrangement until the PFI issues which were preventing academisation were sorted out (see below). The article here is an indication of expectations three years ago. However, there is a parallel with events at Holmesdale School where KCC made clear it explicitly did not want Swale managing the school and unsuccessfully tried to find alternatives.
There was a meeting of the Governing Body of the school last evening, which presumably had to try and resolve the issues this last-minute decision has raised. The information I received from the school preceded this and, in any case, it is right for Governors to inform the school and parents first about the consequence of KCC’s action.
One of the key issues to settle will be the position of headteacher for, although Anna Lawrence has been at the school for five years, the last two as head, she is currently employed by Swale Academies Trust. Something will have to give if KCC has no contract with Swale to deliver services. There may well be other staff in the same situation. Swale Academy Trust has a very strong culture and support mechanism shared with all its schools and The North School will currently be integrated into this, but this could come precipitately to an end.
There is no doubt that KCC support for its few remaining secondary schools has withered away in recent years and is now of dubious quality, as discussed here. As such, it is a poor exchange from what is undoubtedly a high quality service from Swale Academy Trust, which has now brought the school up to the strong standard it now enjoys and which is very attractive to families, but which was funded extravagantly. The North went into Special Measures just a year after Meopham School, which was also taken over by Swale around the same time, but which celebrated its Outstanding Ofsted earlier this year (a rare award for a non-selective school without advantages from its circumstances).