Ministers are being urged to settle debate over their desired make-up of academy trusts after a huge MAT opted to give up two special schools it believes are better off in a SEND chain.
Another trust said it would be “impossible” for it to take on some special schools, while another chief executive warned there wasn’t “external resource to meet the needs of those children” in his area.
Despite this, more trusts are opting not to specialise, amid an explosion in the number of children with special needs.
No direction
Jonathan Simons, director of education at the Public First think tank, believes this “reflects the conflicting currents and eddies in the system”, with leaders without “a single direction of travel”.
“We simply don’t know enough to determine what the best structure is – but if the government wants more children educated in mainstream settings, then it will need to engage with these different currents and eddies.”
Lift Schools, the fifth-largest trust in the country, is set to hand over two special schools, both in Essex, which cater for children with profound and multiple learning disabilities (PMLD) and severe learning difficulties (SLD).
Lift said that “as part of its long-term strategic planning”, it concluded “the next phase of development for both schools is best supported within a specialist trust”.
The move will leave the chain with just three special schools, which have different specialisms. The trust said it has “made clear” to its wider staff “that the plans only apply to their two PMLD and SLD schools”.
Expensive support
Elsewhere, the Meridian Trust, which runs 35 academies, including three special schools, called the “crisis in SEND provision” one of its – and the country’s – “principal risks”.
The “scale of the deficits” reported by some special schools had made it “impossible” to welcome them into the trust.
With local authorities “allowed to slide into irrecoverable debt” and “run far into the ground”, key “multi-agency support required for quality provision is seldom seen”.
Recruitment was also a “significant challenge”, Meridian added, because of an “under-provision” of SEND teacher training and “the comparative pay of support workers”.
Paul Rickeard, the chief executive of the Durham and Newcastle Diocesan Learning Trust, said “a lack of external resource to meet the needs of these children” made it unlikely he would take on a special school.
He said his MAT has had to stump up for private educational psychologists and occupational therapists, as the local authorities in his area were “struggling to meet demand with increasingly long waiting times”.
“If such resources were more forthcoming the trust would then welcome such a provision,” he said.
More mixed MATs
Analysis of government data shows 223 trusts have at least one special school, up slightly from 202 in 2020. Just over 560 (28 per cent) of the 2,030 academies in the trusts are special schools.
That figure stood at 32 per cent in 2020, suggesting they have taken on growing numbers of mainstream schools.
In August, it was announced that Transforming Futures Trust – which runs three special schools and one AP – will merge with the Reach South Academy Trust.
Reach South said the move would build “its capacity to deliver high-quality education across a broader range of needs”.
Billingborough Primary in Lincolnshire was given the go-ahead to convert to academy status the year before, following “a change in pupil make-up” triggered by a rise in the number of youngsters with “complex and additional needs”.
The Community Inclusive Trust was the school’s “preferred option” as it could “benefit from the experience and expertise of practitioners in special school settings”.
Leora Cruddas, the chief executive of theConfederation of School Trusts, noted every chain “is different and will be looking at their strategic approach and how they can best support their schools”.
Some might be “all primary or all specialist, for example, or … a mix of different types and phases of schools”.
White paper hopes
It was recently revealed that government officials are working on white paper proposals to encourage all schools to be in a “group”, though it is not known how this would be defined.
However, Tom Richmond, a former DfE adviser, believes “a clear steer” is needed on “whether the [department] want trusts to branch out or stick to what they know”.
“We have spent years muddling through whether trusts should be specialist or generalist. With the tight funding settlement set to continue, the case for specialising within trusts is becoming stronger.”
The DfE has been approached for comment.
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