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Government proposals for deciding when to academise stuck schools are unfair and “incredibly high stakes”, headteachers’ leaders have warned.

Both of the main school leader unions say that the Department for Education appears to have created an intervention category that is harder to get out of than it is to fall into.

This week, Ofsted and the DfE have launched consultations on a new inspection framework and plans for intervening in schools.

The DfE has said that its Regional Improvement for Standards and Excellence (RISE) teams will initially be working with so-called “stuck schools”. From next September, they will work with schools that Ofsted has judged to “require significant improvement” (RSI).

Definition and plans for a ‘stuck’ school

It has identified just over 600 stuck schools. For now, this includes those judged “requires improvement” at their most recent inspection and less than “good” at the inspection before this.

But the department is also proposing a new definition of a stuck school, in light of the fact that Ofsted’s new report cards will not provide single-phrase overall judgements. Instead, proposed report cards will judge schools across at least eight areas on a five-point scale: causing concern, attention needed, secure, strong and exemplary.

The DfE’s new definition of a stuck school is one with an “attention needed” rating against leadership and governance, and that was graded below “good” - or equivalent - at its previous Ofsted inspection.

A says these schools would receive two years of support.

The document says that, once reinspected after this time, if schools have not achieved “secure” ratings “in all areas”, then the government’s “default” approach will be to move to structural intervention - meaning academisation or rebrokering an academy to a new trust.

• Linked: More than 9 in 10 heads reject report card plan
• Report cards: Everything you need to know about Ofsted’s inspection plans
• Need to know: What are inspectors set to judge schools on?

Headteachers’ leaders’ concerns

Headteachers’ leaders fear that improvements made by stuck schools during the two years will go unrecognised unless they are uniformly spread across every single area that report cards will cover.

James Bowen, the NAHT school leaders’ union assistant general secretary, said: “Is the DfE really proposing that any single ‘attention needed’ rating across eight to 10 areas would mean the schools it is classing as stuck are deemed not to have improved enough and could then face structural intervention?”

He warned that the DfE appeared to have designed a system “where it is easier to fall into an intervention category than it is to get out of it, and where the final trigger for a school being academised or rebrokered could be a single ‘attention needed’ rating”.

“That is surely unfair on schools and will make the school improvement process incredibly high stakes from the outset. It also seems to be at odds with the aim of producing a more nuanced profile of a school over time,” he added.

The DfE is proposing a similar approach for schools found to be “requiring significant improvement” by Ofsted.

‘Setting them up to fail’

RSI is a new category of concern for schools, replacing “serious weaknesses” - which Ofsted applied to some schools that were rated as inadequate.

For the first year of the new Ofsted inspections, schools in this category will be academised or rebrokered - but from September 2026 they will receive RISE support.

The DfE consultation says Ofsted is proposing that RSI will have five monitoring inspections within 18 months, unless the issues have been resolved earlier.

If after that, the school is still causing concern, Ofsted would conduct a full reinspection. If the school is still judged to require significant improvement or has “needs attention” ratings, “our default approach will be to make structural change”, the DfE consultation says.

Tom Middlehurst, the Association of School and College Leaders’ deputy director of policy, warned that requiring schools to achieve “secure” in all categories within two years and 18 months respectively “does sound like setting them up to fail”.

“With eight or more areas of inspection, is the Department for Education really going to academise or rebroker them if they fail to achieve ‘secure’ in a single category at the end of that time? That would mean all the positive work in all those other areas would be deemed not to show sufficient signs of improvement. This is surely complete nonsense”.

Ofsted and the DfE are running consultations on their plans, closing on 28 April.

A Department for Education spokesperson said:��”Where schools are stuck it is important that action is taken to secure rapid and sustainable improvement for the sake of their pupils, who only get one chance to get a great education.��

“Through our RISE teams, the schools will receive the support of leaders with a track record of driving high school standards.�� ��We have high expectations of schools, and ‘secure’ or better in all evaluation areas is the benchmark we think stuck schools should aspire to. ��Our consultation is open for 12 weeks and we welcome views from everyone.”

‘Very complicated and very clunky’

The unions have also raised concerns at the level of complexity involved in both the new Ofsted framework and the DfE’s plans to use report cards to direct RISE teams.

Mr Bowen added: “The two consultations together seem to have created an incredibly complicated system, and rather than tidying up what we had before, there now seems to be added layers of complexity and a whole host of new definitions as well as multiple new criteria and judgements.”

Ofsted’s plans include a flowchart explaining how it will decide whether a school causing concern is placed in special measures or RSI.

The fact that a flowchart is required to explain the plan “rather demonstrates how unnecessarily complicated it has all become”, Mr Bowen said.

Mr Middlehurst said the attempt to “map report cards onto the support and intervention system” seems “very complicated and very clunky”.

He told Tes there should have been a considered process of gathering evidence and feedback from all stakeholders “rather than concocting a plan in Whitehall and charging ahead with a consultation on what is obviously a preferred model”.

“It is far too hasty and a recipe for disaster,” he said.

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