Plans to check trust schools ‘should be welcomed’

New government proposals will provide a necessary check on independent self-governing trust schools, a leading figure in education said today.

John Chowcat, general secretary of the Association of Professionals in Education and Children’s Trusts, said that plans to send council teams into failing or coasting trust schools were to be welcomed as they would enable local authorities to have influence over the schools.

Social care figures have raised concerns about vulnerable children missing out under the government’s education reforms, which are proposed in the Education and Inspections Bill, due to trust schools being free to set their own admissions policies and independent of local authorities.

Under the new proposals councils will be able to send trouble shooting teams into under-performing schools, including trust schools, suspend their budgets and appoint new governors.

“They will make those schools more accountable to the local community,” said Chowcat.