School that overturned academy order will join a trust

A primary school that won a judicial review against the government’s refusal to revoke a previous academy order – costing tens of thousands of pounds – is now consulting on plans to join a trust.

The High Court quashed an academy order against Yew Tree Primary School in the West Midlands in July 2021 after a judge ruled the Department for Education’s decision was “irrational”.

The department was forced to pay the school costs of £75,000, as well as its own legal fees.

But less than two years later, Yew Tree has now launched a formal consultation to join Leigh Trust.

Jamie Barry, the school’s headteacher, said it had long been open to considering academisation, just at “the right time”.

An academy order was issued in 2019 following an ‘inadequate’ Ofsted rating in January that year.

By October, a month after Barry joined, a further inspection led an ‘requires improvement’ rating.

“We needed to make sure we maintained the momentum of our school improvement journey, so to try and also deal with academisation at the same time would have been counter-intuitive,” he said.

‘We didn’t want to be forced’

The school argued in court that it was unable to demonstrate further improvement while inspections were suspended during the pandemic. It was rated ‘good’ in October 2021.

Barry said dwindling local authority budgets and difficult recruitment helped to prompt its recent decision to look again at becoming an academy.

“If we’re part of a multi-academy trust we can get better value in terms of procurements, we can share resources,” he said.

“We didn’t want to be in the position ever again where we were being forced,” he said.

As well as “strong” similarities in “vision and values” and approaches to curriculum and assessment, Barry said it was important to join a smaller trust.

“We wanted a more local trust…that was still growing so we could be part of that development.”

Leigh runs six primary schools in the West Midlands. The chosen sponsor for Yew Tree under the previous academy order, Shine Academies, runs four.

The DfE, which said it was “pleased” about the consultation, refused to divulge how much it had spent fighting the judicial review.

“We know the best trusts enable the best leaders to support more schools, while empowering teachers to improve educational outcomes,” said a spokesperson.