High-attaining poorer pupils at sponsored academies are underperforming

According to an annual report, out of 48 academy chains, only eight saw poorer pupils with high prior attainment go on to progress over the national average.

The Sutton Trust report - Chain Effects 2017 - written by Merryn Hutchings and Becky Francis, which is now in its fourth year, looks at the results of disadvantaged pupils in academy chains with at least two sponsored academies for at least three years. In total there were 48.

The researchers found that, on average, academy chains do better for their disadvantaged pupils with low prior attainment.

They identified 26 chains out of 48, more than half, where disadvantaged pupils with lower grades at the end of primary schools made more progress than in state schools generally. But there were only eight chains where poorer pupils with top grades at primary schools made more progress than the national average.

To support pupils with high attainment in academies, the Sutton Trust is calling for the government to create a fund to support successful initiatives for high attainers from disadvantaged backgrounds, and to focus on supporting disadvantaged pupils of all attainment levels through the pupil premium.

The report highlights how outcomes for disadvantaged pupils vary massively across academy chains. Poorer pupils in 10 out of 48 chains performed above the national average on key measures of 2016 attainment for disadvantaged pupils, including four chains – City of London, Diocese of London, Harris and Outwood Grange – which were significantly above the average. However, in 29 of the 48 chains analysed, disadvantaged pupils performed below the national average for all state schools.

According to The Sutton Trust, over the last year, the government has been more willing to move underperforming academies from their chains and Regional Schools Commissioners have been actively re-brokering academies.

However, to make sure that the academies programme realises its goal of improving outcomes for disadvantaged children, the report is urging the government, and the national and regional schools commissioners, to do more to create mechanisms that spread good practice from the best academy chains to the rest.

Suggestions include creating a taskforce to act as mentors to those sponsors struggling to realise their potential, and commissioning robust research that analyses the factors behind a chain’s success in providing transformational outcomes for disadvantaged pupils.