Dr Jo Saxton is the preferred Candidate to be new chief regulator of Ofqual

Dr Jo Saxton, erstwhile Chief Executive of Turner Schools, the struggling Academy Trust set up by her in Folkestone, is Gavin Williamson’s preferred candidate for the key national education post of Chief Regulator of Ofqual. On the surface, she is an ideal candidate with a powerful background of holding important positions, so the chasm between her rhetoric and the outcomes at Turner Schools may fit in with the DfE’s needs in the role.

It is hard to know where to start a performance analysis of her time in Folkestone, but this article concludes with links to the eighteen articles I have written about it, which are replete with startling factual material about the Trust and its four schools. My final article on her period in office begins: For the last three and a half years, Turner Schools has been one of my most prolific themes for articles on this website, aided and abetted by its CEO and founder Dr Jo Saxton, whose passion for promoting the Trust (named after her grandmother) and making fantastical claims for its performance and future prospects was simply breathtaking, as demonstrated in my incomplete collection of slogans, mottos, motivating messages and false claims.

You will find a list of Turner Schools ‘achievements’ during Dr Saxton’s leadership here, with some of the most striking repeated below and others in the list of news items at the foot of this article.

Turner Schools came into existence in 2016 with a powerful set of governors and a typically big agenda: Jo Saxton, Ph.D. is founder of Turner Schools, a new MAT dedicated to improving outcomes in East and North Kent, initially taking over Martello Grove Academy and Morehall Primary School from the failed Lilac Sky Schools Trust. The Trust later added Folkestone Academy and the new Turner Free School, replacing Pent Valley also in Folkestone, which had closed. Several other schools have had Turner Schools proposed to them as partners, but none have taken them up. Sadly, there have been few signs of improvement either, with the three established schools all deeply unpopular with parents, and a long list of performance failures below, the sole bright spot being a Good Ofsted rating by Morehall in 2019, who didn't notice the large number of empty spaces in the school (the Principal was sacked at short notice a year afterwards).

For the school year 2017/18 Folkestone Academy (FA), topped the Kent exclusion table by a considerable margin, with 1211 fixed-term exclusions, equivalent to 88% of the pupil roll, with Martello Primary (MaP), second amongst primary schools with 25%. The Trust justified the high number of exclusions, by stating that they were ‘necessary to achieve high standards’ although before and since Dr Saxton has agreed with one of her gurus that ‘“Behaviours that lead to exclusions happen when students perceive there to be no limits and no expectations and no rules’. Indeed, she claimed that‘prior to joining Turner Schools, Folkestone Academy was the highest excluding school in Kent', which it wasn’t!

According to Dr Saxton writing about FA and the new Turner Free School (TFS), both schools will outperform all schools in the south of England – excluding grammars - and provide “success without selection”. Whilst pupils at TFS have not yet reached GCSE age, Folkestone Academy has delivered some of the lowest GCSE results in the county, so Dr Saxton would have experience of such matters in her Ofqual role. It has seen the Sixth Form more than halve in numbers in three years, following policies such as the removal of vocational subjects, a fall unparalleled elsewhere in Kent in my experience. There has also been a sharp fall in admissions to the school. Morehall Primary and Martello are regularly at the top of the Kent primary school vacancy table, with MOP having 75% vacancies in Dr Saxton’s last year, more than any other of Kent’s 433 primary schools, with MAP ninth.

All this in a kaleidoscope of structural and staff changes, especially Head and Senior Teacher levels, with FA getting through five Principals in less than two years, along with a high proportion of Senior Leadership members, and over a third of the teaching staff in 2017-18 with many more the following year. Directors also appeared to be dispensed with in characteristic abandon.

Dr Saxton was the highest-paid Trust leader in the county in her time at Turner Schools, apart from some of those at the five largest Trusts, on a salary of £149,783. This was for her work at an underperforming small Trust of three schools with a fourth (TFS) just beginning, shortly after she changed her role in the Trust to focus on Curriculum Matters, a strange decision for a CEO, on such a salary. Quote: ‘I’m very well aware that I’m well paid, and it’s a real privilege to be CEO of Turner Schools. Salaries of the most senior people in any organisation are rightly scrutinised, and ultimately the test of anyone’s worth is whether they deliver what they promise’.

I don’t know how many visits Duncan Harrington, the National Schools Commissioner pays to schools, but he certainly found time to visit Folkestone Academy where strangely he was reported to have been impressed with its progress. This underlies Dr Saxton’s chief success, which appears in various of my articles, including here, of attracting funds and influence. By the time she had left the Trust, it owed £1.3 million in loans from the DfE and with falling rolls will have difficulty in paying it back.

Finally

Dr Saxton demonstrated two important skills during her time in Folkestone which will obviously come in useful in her new role, chiming with the current approach of government. These were an ability to charm money and loans to prop up the schools, possibly drawing on her excellent links to ‘the establishment’, and an ability to promote the Trust, oblivious of the facts.

In her current role, amongst her other responsibilities, Dr Saxton has been charged with that of Academy Expansion. This may be why a number of schools have had Turner Schools proposed to them as suitable Trust partners, although significantly and to the best of my knowledge none have taken this up.

She will not be forgotten in Folkestone, as evidenced by the messages I have received since this news was announced, expressing shock and disbelief over the recommendation from some of those who have paid a heavy price for being associated with Turner Schools.

Articles about Turner Schools

Turner Schools: Update (September 2020)

More drama at Turner Schools (June 2020)

Dr Jo Saxton Leaves Turner Schools to be Government Policy Advisor for the School System (March 2020)

Annual School Report for Turner Schools: Serious Weaknesses (February 2020)

Folkestone Academy joins the Tough Love Failures, and Other Turner School Successes (January 2020)

Turner Schools and Folkestone Academy: High Turnover of Teachers, Directors and Administrators continues unabated (November 2019)

Less 'Sea Change' more troubled waters at Folkestone Academy and Turner School (October 2019)

Academies in the News: Turner Schools; Delce Academy; Oasis Academy Isle of Sheppey (August 2019)

Turner Schools: More Self Promotion (July 2019)

Turner Schools: Fresh Blessings from on High (April 2019)

Turner Schools: Failed Attempt to Counter Negative Publicity (March 2019)