Failing primary schools to be converted to academies

The "sponsored academies" programme, an idea introduced under the Labour government, originally aimed to turn around failing secondary schools by shutting them down and reopening them as academies supported by money from private sponsors.

But today’s announcement will mean that failing primary schools will also be part of the scheme. According to the government there are around 1,400 primary schools below the minimum "floor standard", which means that less than 60 per cent of pupils reach a basic level in English and Maths by age 11.

Of these, about 500 have been below the floor standard for two or three years and a further 200 have fallen behind for the past five years.

Education Secretary Michael Gove said: "The education debate in this country has not confronted reality. Education systems across the world are improving faster than England. We have to set our sights higher.

"We should no longer tolerate a system in which so many pupils leave primary school without a good grasp of English and maths, and leave secondary school without five good GCSEs. We want all parents to have a choice of good local schools."

The latest plan is in addition to the 1,200 schools that have applied to convert to academy status known as "converter academies".

The Department for Education has also announced that local authorities with large numbers of struggling primary schools will have to work with government to raise standards.

As well as a focus on primary education, Gove said minimum expectations for secondary schools will be raised over the next three years. Currently, schools are expected to have 35 per cent of students achieving five A* to C grades including English and maths. In 2012 Gove said this will increase to 40 per cent and then to 50 per cent by the end of the current parliament.

The latest announcement follows claims in the Financial Times that an administrative error has left many academies with more money than they are entitled to.

But the government said academy "top-up funding" is calculated on the basis of information collected by local authorities and blamed the previous government for introducing the system.

A DfE spokesman said: "The current system of academy funding was introduced by the last government. It relies on local authorities to provide accurate information about their spending and occasionally individual local authorities make errors, which leads to academies getting too much or too little funding. It is wrong to blame departmental officials for errors that have occurred in local authority returns."