Academy proposals risk leaving behind additional needs pupils

It suggests we are on the brink of a momentous achievement: an equitable school system that delivers the best results for all children. And the means to reach this happy state? Academies everywhere. But while the government is right to think creatively about how to raise standards in schools, giving academies the freedom to innovate might also create a system that is slack in other ways, giving disadvantaged pupils a raw deal.

One concern is whether academies are less inclined to welcome children with additional needs than a maintained school, which identifies more with a local area's overall provision. Of course, if an academy is named in an education, health and care plan (EHC), then it must admit that student - though academies retain a right of appeal to the Secretary of State. But parents choosing where to send their child can be discouraged before their child's EHC plan is drawn up if a school subtly sends out the message that the child's additional needs might be better met in another school nearby.

Establishing the extent of this practice is difficult. But research by the Centre for High-Performance at the Universities of Oxford and Kingston has looked into the practices of 160 academies. Its findings suggest excluding lower performing pupils is an option that could be used for improving school performance. In this context, regional schools commissioners and Ofsted inspectors must be vigilant for academies failing to take their quota of pupils with additional needs.

While removing the local authority from the management of schools is designed to remove a layer of bureaucracy, there is a concern this will undermine what we know about the education of vulnerable groups of children.

Take, for instance, children who are missing from education. Admittedly there are gaps and inconsistencies in how data on these children is gathered by local authorities - partly due to the absence of Department for Education reporting on the national picture - but at least this data is being gathered in some way. Under a more fragmented education system what we know about children who drop out of school may become even patchier.

The fragmentation of responsibilities will present other obstacles to Educational Excellence Everywhere achieving its ambitions. An obvious inconsistency is giving local authorities the duty to provide every child with a place in the face of swelling demand, but removing their power to require academies to increase their intake.

Similarly, keeping the responsibility for schools in one place and the responsibility for the education of vulnerable groups of children in another seems a recipe for disparity.

This is not to say that academies are a flawed idea in themselves. When School Dash recently published its in-depth analysis of sponsored and converter academies, it confirmed that the academy experiment has raised standards in some schools. The data suggests good schools that become academies stay good, while the not-so-good up their game. But the results are not as conclusive as the government might wish, and well-performing schools under local authority control are entitled to ask what problem is conversion trying to solve? In the long run, will some Multi-Academy Trusts replicate the failings of struggling local authorities?

To get the best of both worlds - the empowerment of conversion, as well as the advantages of local authority control - may require slightly more radical approaches.

The review of the role of local authorities announced in the white paper is an opportunity to look at alternatives such as whether, as champions of vulnerable groups of children, local authorities might be responsible for more rigorous policing of admissions and exclusions. It should also give a chance to consider closer collaboration between learning institutions and children's services so they can form a more effective safeguarding community. Creating this "wider support ecology" - as it was described in a collection of essays, Rethinking Children's Services, published by the National Children's Bureau and Catch 22 - should not be an ideal that falls by the wayside as local authorities' duties evolve.

Ultimately, we have to ask the question whether the white paper is founded on values that are relevant for all children in education, especially the most vulnerable. The House of Lords social mobility committee recently criticised the education system for being set up to prepare children for university, despite the majority of pupils not opting for study beyond the age of 16.

For disabled pupils and those with special educational needs, who are more likely to go on to be not in education, employment or training at the age of 19, these are pressing concerns. If the system is leaving some children who are not academic high-flyers to drift from school into unemployment, inappropriate training or a job with little hope of progression, then excellence may be happening in some places, but certainly not everywhere.

Anna Feuchtwang is chief executive at National Children's Bureau