Almost unnoticed, Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson & the Labour Government has changed its policy on academy schools. Whether you believed it or not (I didn’t), when Phillipson first came into government she presented a “neutral” position on academisation. As Warwick Mansell says here, “Labour post-2024 had been agnostic on school structures, arguing that what went on in schools was more important than how they were organised.”

Labour’s Education White Paper changed the language used, from Academy Trusts to Schools Trusts but fundamentally accepted the case for full academisation:

“With just over half of state-funded schools in England now academies, and the rest still local authority maintained, there was an effective stalemate between the two sectors, with no apparent government enthusiasm for changing this status quo.

All that has changed, however, with the white paper, with Labour now arguing that all schools should become part of what it euphemistically now describes as “school trusts”. Despite what appears to be an attempt to move away from the use of the word “academy,” this is in reality a refreshed all-schools-must-be-academies drive, as tried twice without success over the past 10 years by the Conservatives, with the Department for Education having confirmed last week that all schools in newly-created trusts will legally be academies.”

You wouldn’t have known from media coverage, or any education sector institutions, but the White Paper essentially presented a government turnaround and a fait accompli for the academy model, apparently convinced by the arguments of the academy employers’ group, the Confederation of School Trusts (CST). Sounds familiar, eh?

If anyone is interested in hanging on to - or reinstating - comprehensive education & resisting privatisation in our school system, this is worth a read (and then let’s talk about what we do to stop it).