More than half of so-called “stuck” schools have either moved trusts or improved their Ofsted grade, a Tes analysis reveals.
The findings show that plans to send Regional Improvement for Standards and Excellence (RISE) teams into hundreds of stuck schools could amount to a duplication of effort, trust leaders are warning.
The Department for Education defines schools as stuck if they were rated as “requires improvement” at their most recent graded Ofsted inspection, and were previously less than “good”.
This applies even if the school has since academised or moved between trusts after the first of the two inspections.
Tes’ analysis shows that around four in 10 stuck schools have joined their trust since the first Ofsted inspection that contributed to the classification.
And nearly two-thirds of those schools improved between their last two inspections.
Most ‘stuck’ schools improve
Confederation of School Trusts (CST) deputy chief executive Steve Rollett said this shows that most stuck schools that had recently joined a trust were beginning to improve.
He added: “After all, the DfE has moved them precisely because they think the trust has the capacity to support improvement.
“It therefore makes little sense to double up and have RISE go in in the same way as for a school that has not had that revitalising change of governance.”
Overall, 51 per cent of all stuck schools have improved or moved trust since the first inspection that gave them that designation.
Alternative provisions The Shoreline Academy and Stansfield Academy in Devon were each rated “inadequate” at Ofsted inspections in 2017 and 2018. Both settings joined Wave Multi Academy Trust after these inspections in November 2018.
In subsequent inspections in January 2023, they received “requires improvement”. Neither has had a published inspection since.
Wave MAT CEO Rob Gasson told Tes, while he understands the stuck schools policy aims to address persistent underperformance, “its fairness hinges on balancing accountability with recognition of the changes in governance and leadership and management in those schools”.
He added that further clarity and flexibility would be welcomed to applying RISE intervention in schools like Shoreline and Stansfield.
“I feel the label could result in less of an appetite for trusts to take on schools in this situation in the future,” he told Tes.
Risk of ‘duplication and confusion’
Tes revealed last week that the CST is seeking a policy review over the plans to send RISE advisers into stuck schools because it is concerned this means trusts are being held to account for the performance of a school before it was part of the academy trust.
Mr Rollett added: “If we truly want collaboration to be at the heart of school improvement, that means knowing when to support, when to intervene and when to step back.
“Targeted support from RISE could be a good thing, but a blunt approach that risks duplication and confusion is likely to be counterproductive.”
The DfE originally announced that 600 stuck schools would receive intervention from RISE teams.
However, around 200 of these have had a structural intervention since their most recent inspection, so the aim is for teams to work with around 400 schools initially.
Secure improvement journeys ‘at risk’
Of these schools, Tes analysis found 172 (41 per cent) are listed as having joined their current academy trust after the first of the two inspections that resulted in them being classed as “stuck”.
Furthermore, of these 172 schools, 107 (62 per cent) improved from “inadequate” to “requires improvement” between their first and second inspection.
Overall, 148 (36 per cent) of all the stuck schools improved between their two inspections.
CST’s briefing note last week raised concerns that the current stuck school definition saw trusts “being held to account for an Ofsted judgement before a school joined the trust”.
The briefing warned that “in many instances, we have heard from you that this is putting secure improvement journeys at risk, driving workload, and impacting negatively on the wellbeing of those headteachers who have put their hearts and souls into improving ‘inadequate’ schools”.
This element of the RISE programme “is also a deeply questionable use of public resources”, it added.
‘Unhelpful’ to label schools simply as ‘stuck’
Pepe Di’Iasio, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said it was “unhelpful to persist with labelling hundreds of schools, in a range of different contexts, simply as ‘stuck’”.
“We need to move away from stigmatising labels and towards a system that is genuinely supportive and recognises the unique challenges and trajectories of individual schools,” he added.
Paul Whiteman, general secretary of the NAHT school leaders’ union, said: “This analysis shows that many schools have now moved on and will be in a very different place.
“Describing schools as ‘stuck’ is unhelpful and derogatory and only serves to add additional layers of unnecessary complexity to the accountability system.
“We still need to move away from this obsession with ascribing labels and single words to try and classify schools, particularly when the data shows that schools within this category are on all sorts of different improvement journeys.”
“This list is ultimately a legacy of a failed Ofsted system and previous government policy,” he added.
Ofsted no longer gives out single-word effectiveness grades, and the stuck school definition is set to change when Ofsted’s new report card system comes into effect from November.
System set to continue under report cards
Under the new report card system, the DfE will regard a school as being stuck if Ofsted rates it as “attention needed” for leadership and governance, and the school was graded below “good” - or equivalent - at their previous Ofsted inspection.
Tes understands that, as now, a school will be regarded as stuck even if the first of the two Ofsted inspections happened before it was part of its current trust.
The DfE’s consultation on school accountability reform is open until 28 April, and seeks views on how stuck schools will be identified in the future.
The measure being used to define stuck schools replicates the previous government’s crackdown on what it termed as “coasting schools”.
The Conservatives used the coasting school definition to give the secretary of state powers to issue academy orders to schools rated less than “good” in two consecutive Ofsted inspections. This was not done automatically for all coasting schools but on a case-by-case basis.
Targeted support from RISE advisers
The new government announced that it was ending this approach last year and has since announced that stuck schools will be targeted for two years of support from RISE advisers.
However, if these schools have not made necessary improvement, a DfE consultation document says the “default” approach will be to move to structural intervention, meaning academisation or rebrokering an academy to a new trust.
The document says this would happen if the stuck school had been reinspected by Ofsted after two years and not achieved “secure” ratings “in all areas”.
School leaders have warned that the government’s plans for when to academise stuck schools are “unfair” and “incredibly high stakes”.
Commenting on Tes’ analysis this week, a DfE spokesperson said: “Children should not spend their education in schools that are consistently underperforming and our new RISE teams, backed by an initial investment of £20 million, will play a vital role in tackling this, acting as a catalyst for school improvement across the country.”
Methodology
Analysis from the Lighthouse data tool, set up by London headteacher Andrew O’Neill, previously identified 626 schools matching the DfE’s criteria for stuck schools using Ofsted inspection outcomes data as of 31 December 2024, as set out in the .
Tes removed 210 schools identified as having had structural intervention since their most recent inspection based on Get Information About Schools (GIAS) data.
Of those remaining, GIAS and the December Ofsted inspection data were used to identify schools listed as joining their current trust after their first inspection date, and those that improved from “inadequate” to “requires improvement” between inspections.
The analysis was also run using the most recent Ofsted data, as some schools will have had inspections since December, but the overall findings were unchanged.
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