45 more advisers recruited to join ‘best of the best’ RISE teams

The next tranche of leaders joining the government’s school improvement squads have been named – with over 80 per cent of them coming from trusts.

Education secretary Bridget Phillipson has revealed the RISE teams are now set to start working with more than 200 schools, having focused their attentions on 32 primaries and secondaries since their launch in February.

Forty-five more school improvement experts have been recruited to the divisions as advisers to work alongside the 20 selected earlier this year and civil servants (see full list below).

Of the latest appointments, all but eight (18 per cent) have most recently worked in academy trusts. Seven are from councils, their school improvement arms or maintained schools, while one is a consultant.

Education secretary Bridget Phillipson said: “No child should be spending precious days, let alone years, in schools that are underperforming.

“Our new RISE teams, made up of the best of the best in school improvement, can be the spark that turns around the life chances of tens of thousands of children.”

The teams – backed by £20 million of government cash – will commission support for struggling schools from bodies such as trusts, councils and federations.

The Department for Education said today that “the first schools we began working with in February have started to be paired with supporting organisations, including high-quality [MATs]”.

These include the Mulberry Schools Trust, L.E.A.D Academy Trust and Northern Education Trust. Those receiving support are in line for up to £100,000 to help turn them around.

However, DfE does not intend to publish the improvement plans for these schools.

DfE analysis suggests the schools the RISE teams are now supporting have spent an average of 6.6 years rated below ‘good’ by Ofsted.

This amounts to “a child spending their whole primary or secondary school years in an underperforming school”.

Forty-two have been considered “stuck” – those with consecutive Ofsted judgments of ‘requires improvement’ or worse – for more than 11 years.

A full list of the schools getting support will be published next week, Schools Week understands.

Government also noted that it will create “a RISE operational stakeholder group to advise on delivery to ensure views are reflected” and “continue our engagement with the sector”.

It will appoint “members by contacting representative organisations for nominees”, with more information on this expected to be shared “shortly”.

The 45 new RISE advisers