Shocking failures of schools revealed
M.E.N. INVESTIGATION UNCOVERS HUGE DEBTS, SAFETY CONCERNS AND CHAOTIC MANAGEMENT AT TRUST NOW SHUT DOWN BY GOVERNMENT
A COLLAPSED free school chain had only one phone, no functioning computer network, basic safety failures, missing financial information and was £1m in debt by the time the government finally shut it down.
Board minutes, a whistleblower account, written responses from ministers and new financial documents - compiled by an M.E.N. investigation - have now prompted MPs to demand an independent inquiry into a ‘catalogue of errors’ regarding the Collective Spirit trust.
Ministers are being pushed to explain what due diligence was carried out before letting the multimillion pound chain open and fold within four years.
The academy trust comprised the Collective Spirit secondary in Oldham and its sister school, Manchester Creative Studio (MCS), in Ancoats, which were both set up by former charity boss Raja Miah under the government’s free schools programme.
The Oldham school was shut by the Department for Education last summer after a damning Ofsted report, rockbottom results and questions over its finances, while MCS was handed to new management at the same time in the wake of similar findings. In January, ministers confirmed that MCS will also close this summer. Both schools had been operational for little over four years and received at least £13m in funding between them. Since then, ministers have been under growing pressure to reveal how the schools were able to fail, but have so far remained tightlipped. Now, minutes uncovered by an education campaigner - but denied to the M.E.N. by the Department for Education under the Freedom of Information Act - show that as the Oldham school was closing its doors last July, the new management of its sister school in Ancoats were uncovering its own serious concerns. Minutes from a series of trustee meetings throughout last summer and autumn state that the IT system they found on arrival was not networked, did not function properly and did not have working safeguarding filters, despite the school being marketed at students seeking to go into digital industries.
Its server was ‘not examcompliant,’ which ‘affects delivery of the curriculum and has safeguarding implications,’ reveal the minutes, adding that a ‘functioning and safe,’ ‘fit for purpose’ network with proper safety filters was required, costing around £37,000.
Aside from the computers, no electrical safety testing certification could be found for any devices in the building, note the minutes, adding ‘there is only one phone in the building, at reception’ and that new electrical sockets were needed due to fire risk.
The burglar alarm was not working and the emergency lighting was broken, according to the records, which note a number of other basic health and safety breaches and add: “To summarise, it is expected that the total costs of all urgent works will be in the region of £2,500 for appropriate safety compliance.”
They also highlight major issues with maths teaching in the school,
The costs of all urgent works will be in region of £2,500 for appropriate safety compliance Trustee meeting minutes
which was having serious consequences for children studying computer science - a subject that was meant to be one of the school’s big selling points.
Concerns ‘of a capability and disciplinary nature affecting a number of staff’ were also raised at board meetings, as well as two rulings of exam malpractice by the OCR exam board.
‘Safe recruitment procedures’ for the hiring of staff had not been followed and some staff contracts and correct pension allocations were not in place either, according to the minutes.
Both the minutes and the Manchester school’s latest accounts also raise fresh questions about the chain’s finances beyond those already highlighted in previous M.E.N. investigations. Auditors Sleigh and Story report in the accounts to last August - which were signed off in December and published last month - that they had been unable to access statements from one of the school’s bank accounts since the resignation of the previous trustees in April, so were unable to provide an opinion on them.
They had also been unable to obtain a response from the original board themselves.
The accounts also show the school faces a £408,000 deficit, while board minutes refer to potential liabilities of £1m due to ongoing falls in pupil numbers.
In addition, more than £400,000 had been spent over the course of three years with an outside firm called Collective Spirit Community Trust, of which the school board’s former chair Alun Morgan was a shareholder.
‘Related party transactions’ payments to firms in which a member of the school’s leadership has an interest - are allowed under academy rules, so long as they are fully disclosed.
However, accounts for the year to August 2016 had not disclosed that Mr Morgan had remained a 50pc shareholder in the firm after resigning from its board.
In the year to last August, Collective Spirit Community Trust received another £93,000 from the Manchester school, including £58,000 for ‘marketing,’ £20,000 for catering supplies, £10,000 for cleaning and security and £10,000 for ‘kitchen.’ Trustee minutes show the new board querying several invoices, particularly around catering. In a written response to a question from Manchester Central MP Lucy Powell, the government has also confirmed that Ofsted requested it review the trust’s use of pupil premium funding, cash allocated specifically to help children from more deprived backgrounds. It did not outline the result of that review. A whistleblower, parent and former pupil spoken to by the M.E.N. all echo the findings of the new MCS trustees and Ofsted’s previous scathing reports into both the Manchester and Oldham schools, which had highlighted serious failures in teaching, safeguarding and governance. One former teacher has described a lack of suitablyqualified permanent
Board minutes refer to potential liabilities of £1m due to ongoing falls in pupil numbers Jennifer Williams
teachers, lesson plans, discipline, curriculum, textbooks or special educational needs provision across both schools, as well as just one working phone.
“There were kids just wandering the corridors,” the teacher said.
“All you could hope to do for six hours was to keep them safe. That was how low our expectations became.
“Supply teachers would start and leave within the same day and there was no special needs co-ordinator.
“It was unbelievable and really hard to articulate unless you were there, it was so bad.
“It was humiliating, embarrassing, and went against every single emotion you have as a parent or teacher. Those children were being let down badly. “They were not receiving the education they were entitled to. It was chaos.” Ofsted had itself noted in 2016 a lack of age-appropriate books or books ‘for information,’ a ‘succession of temporary teachers’ and no SEN coordinator in the Oldham school. It found similar serious and widespread safety failures at the Manchester school a year later. “Pupils have not received the quality of education that they were promised,” it said of MCS when it inspected the Manchester school in 2017. A former pupil at MCS claims concerns were raised by students and parents within the first year of the school opening, including about a lack of safety filters on the computer network.
Like many others, he left before taking his GCSEs, but says friends who remained on at the school had been badly let down.
“What gets me is that there was so much ruined potential because of this,” he said.
“They’ve now ruined their futures by proxy.”
A parent whose child was at the Oldham school also said their experience was ‘absolutely terrible.’
“Lessons weren’t properly managed,” the parent said.
“There were constant supply teachers all the time, changing not just every week but literally every day, teachers who started in the morning and weren’t there by the afternoon.
“We asked what they were doing about the IT problems, but were just told it was a network issue. Generally, we weren’t asking about the equipment though because that was the least of the concerns.
“They weren’t providing the core education. It’s shocking.”
Lucy Powell and Oldham West and Royton MP Jim McMahon, both of whom have repeatedly raised the issues at the academy chain in parliament, have now called for an independent inquiry into the trust’s failures.
“This is a terrible case with pupils, parents and teachers being let down by school leaders and board members at this multi academy trust,” they said.
“There was no effective support, challenge or ongoing oversight in place by the Department for Education, which we would expect for such an obviously risky undertaking.” Describing a ‘catalogue of errors’ around oversight and accountability of the schools by government, the case brings the education system into ‘serious disrepute,’ they added, ‘and raises serious questions about where the buck stops.’ Highlighting that the government still refuses to publish its own 2016 internal financial investigation into the schools - a refusal the M.E.N. has now taken to the Information Commissioner - the MPs said it was time for ministers to be open. “This investigation is damning, and shows a failure of leadership at all levels from officials in the Department for Educa-
They were not receiving the education they were entitiled to. It was chaos Former teacher at the academy trust
This is a terrible case with pupils, parents and teachers being let down MPs Lucy Powell and Jim McMahon
tion who signed off these schools yet clearly failed with due diligence checks, to Ofsted who should have carried out more robust pre-registration checks, to the Education and Skills Funding Agency who should publish financial investigations into schools as a matter of course and ultimately from ministers who bury their heads in the sand and tell us that our schools system is working despite the overwhelming evidence in this case that it isn’t,” they added.
“We are calling on ministers to launch an independent inquiry into Collective Spirit.
“It just isn’t good enough for ministers to refuse to publish the report into financial probity at the trust and fob off requests for further information.
“We will be pursuing a debate on this issue in Parliament so ministers can answer to local families for their failure to provide a decent education for children in Manchester and Oldham.”
Raja Miah has been contacted for comment as part of this article as founder and former trustee, but has not so far done so.
The M.E.N. has been unable to contact Alun Morgan. A spokesman for the Department for Education said: “All free schools operate under a strict system of oversight and accountability - ensuring any issues are identified quickly so that pupils are protected.
“We have been working closely with both Collective Spirit and Manchester Creative Studio’s trust board to consider options for the future of the schools.
“All interested parties were asked for their views on the closures of the schools and, having reviewed the responses in detail, the Collective Spirit closed in 2016/17 and Manchester Creative Studio will close at the end of the current academic year, when all pupils have concluded their studies.”
Martin Shevill, chair of the new trustees at MCS, said that since taking over last summer, the new leadership had been ‘absolutely focused’ on putting in place strong teaching and curriculum for the children, who will remain at the school until the end of this academic year, while leaving the Education Skills Funding Agency and the Department for Education to look at what had happened previously.
“The staff that remain here are really committed and they are committed to seeing it through until the end of June, when all the students will have taken their exams,” he said.
“That has been our number one priority throughout.”