Queen's Speech: Academies Bill

The Queen's Speech included the long-trailed Bill to make it easier for schools to gain academy status and leave local authority control.

The bill will:

• enable the Secretary of State to issue an “academy order” requiring the local authority to cease to maintain the school.
• remove the requirement to consult the local authority before opening an academy, thus simplifying and accelerating the process.
• require the consent of any existing (mainly church) foundations before a school applies to become an academy.
• deem academy trusts to be “exempt charities”.
• enable primary and special schools to become academies as well as secondary schools.
• ensure there is no change of religious character in the conversion process.
• retain the existing legal requirement for funding agreements to last at least seven years (the agreement can still provide for intervention or termination, if the academy fails).
• provide schools with the freedoms to deliver an excellent education in the way they see fit, within a broad framework where they are clearly accountable for the outcomes they deliver.
• enable all maintained schools to apply to become an Academy with schools judged ‘outstanding’ by Ofsted being pre-approved.
• prevent the expansion of selective schools, although schools which already select or partially select pupils will be able to continue to do so.