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15 April 2026

Tag: coasting schools

Education is a long game, so league table measures should be too

There are natural swings between year groups as talent and circumstance ebb and flow, suggests Loic Menzies, but under the current system, this skews perspectives on school success. Every year, hundreds of secondary schools’ results swing by more than 15 percentage points. Some shift by 30 percentage points. This does not necessarily mean a particular school […]

Struggling schools ordered to become academies still waiting for sponsors

Schools are still waiting to be appointed with a sponsor just weeks before they are due to convert into academies – sparking a warning over the lack of suitable sponsors with hundreds of coasting schools set to be revealed. Latest government figures, released last week, show that eight schools set to become sponsored academies in the next few […]

Education bill: Who will pay the bills as academies are passed around between trusts?

With the late inclusion of academies and free schools in new coasting schools legislation, schools could be passed around like Premiership footballers, leading to worries over costs, warns Phil Reynolds. The government has been very clear in their vision to ensure that school performance is not ‘coasting’ and their target to make every school in […]

‘Sponsorship is not a cure all for improving coasting schools’

Professor Becky Francis gives us her view on academies and the new “coasting schools” definition, in light of the report she co-authored for the Sutton Trust. Since its inception in 2000, the size of the academies programme has increased dramatically. Five years ago there were about 200 academies, today there are well over 4,000. With […]

If you REALLY want to find ‘coasting schools’, HERE is the definition you need

The government want to tackle ‘coasting schools’. Nicky Morgan has described them as schools that may be in “leafy areas” but nevertheless fail to realise the “full potential” of their pupils. This week the government released the definition they will use to find this sort of school. Under the proposed law, coasting schools are defined […]

Coasting concept is ‘fatally flawed’ for comprehensive and grammar schools

A school will be deemed to be coasting if 60% of its pupils fail to achieve 5 GCSE grades A*to C including English and Maths. This is an arbitrary benchmark defining the school. The policy which spawned the concept is directed not at the school’s pupils but at the school itself. Since the underlying principle […]

“The government has signalled it no longer trusts the validity of Ofsted”

The Government’s announcement on coasting schools has far reaching consequences. The government should be very concerned (but won’t be) that this will further discourage (if such a thing were possible) headteachers taking on schools with socially disadvantaged intakes. For the first three years, at least, threshold targets for secondary schools (60 per cent of pupils […]

5 things bothering me about the ‘coasting schools’ definition

Today was the first day of the Education Bill committee stage. To celebrate the ‘coasting schools’ definition was revealed. The definition matters because it will decide which schools could be forced to change management unless the regional schools commissioner decides they are worthy of being saved. A detailed look at the definition is here. In […]