City academy was in special measures
THE government is planning to remove funding from a Birmingham school for “failing to give pupils an acceptable standard of education.”
Aston’s CUL Academy was placed into special measures in September 2015 and is due to have its funding removed by the Department for Education in the New Year.
The free school, which is outside local authority control, provides education for children who have been excluded from mainstream education and only opened 12 months before being placed into special measures.
The damming Ofsted report said the Aston North Road school had weaknesses in its safeguarding, management and its teaching.
Among a raft of 17 required improvements it was ordered to ensure criminal record checks were carried out on all staff ; recruit new governors with suitable experience and to make sure lessons started on time.
Ofsted has since conducted three ‘section 8’ follow up inspections, the last of which was at the beginning of this year. It found that attainment in 2016 was “considerably lower than 2015” with not a single pupil achieving five GCSE passes at grade A* to C.
A letter revealing plans to cut funding was sent to the school’s Chair of Trustees, Desmond Jad- doo, in June from the then schools minister, Lord Nash.
The letter said funding would be removed in January 2018 and added: “The Ofsted report stated that the Academy was failing to give its pupils an acceptable standard of education and the persons responsible for leading, managing or governing the school were not demonstrating the capacity to secure the necessary improvement in the school.
“The Trust’s representations have not convinced the Secretary of State that the current governing body and leadership team has the capability to turn the school around swiftly so that it will give its pupils an acceptable standard of education.
“We have given careful thought to the effect on pupils and have sought to keep any disruption to a minimum. With this in mind, we will work to re-broker CUL Academy to a new sponsor by the termination date.”
A statement issued by chairman of trustees Desmond Jaddoo, said the termination date had now been extended from January until May.
The statement said: “The current state of CUL Academy’s status is unknown as Ofsted have failed to conduct two of the termly monitoring visits. Furthermore, CUL Academy has it best exam results to date. Clearly, these actions do not reflect the progress which has been made by the Academy.
“CUL Academy can only continue if re-brokered to their preferred choice, East Birmingham Network (EBN), for which we are now cooperating, as a responsible leadership team.”
He added: “Ofsted had concerns about teaching, learning and leadership and the changes in culture and personnel led to better improved achievements for the young people. CUL Academy will continue to strive to ensure the children young people are supported to continue to achieve to the best of their ability during the period of re-brokering.”
A Department for Education Spokesperson said: “We have given notice to terminate the CUL Academy Trust’s funding agreement ahead of the trust being rebrokered to the East Birmingham Network (EBN) Trust.
“Every pupil deserves an excellent education and we have consistently shown that, where a school is underperforming, we will not hesitate to take action to see it improve.
“We will now work with the trust and EBN to ensure there is no disruption to pupils’ education.”
These actions do not reflect the progress which has been made by the Academy Chair of Trustees Desmond Jaddoo