Michael Gove has changed the focus of the academies programme he inherited from Labour Ministers are attempting to accelerate their academies programme by opening up the scheme to all schools in England.
The education secretary and the prime minister are inviting all primaries and secondaries to seek academy status – providing they team up with a school classed as outstanding by Ofsted.
Good schools with outstanding features will also be automatically eligible to apply, as outstanding schools are now.
Academies have greater freedoms and are outside of local authority control.
They also gain access to funds which would previously have been pooled at local authority level for area-wide services such as special needs provision.
Critics say the coalition’s programme so far has been likely to primarily benefit schools in privileged areas, where outstanding schools tend to be located.
Its expansion comes not long after Education Secretary Michael Gove warned local authorities he would use his powers under the Academies Act to require struggling schools to become sponsored academies.
He also asked councils to identify which weak schools in their areas would benefit from academy status.
Mr Gove says this new announcement is all about driving improvement.
It means, for example, that a satisfactory primary school could partner up with an outstanding secondary school, giving them both academy status.
The Department for Education gives the example of a number of outstanding schools that are already working in partnership with other schools, improving their results.
For the first time special schools will also have the opportunity to become academies.
Officials say this will give them more flexibility in how they buy in support for pupils’ special needs.
There are about 21,000 schools in England and currently 347 of them are open academies.
Eighty of these are the new-style academies, created since the coalition came to power and altered the scheme, which under Labour mainly targeted struggling schools.
Since July some 224 applications for academy status have been received by the Department for Education.
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