Changes to school intervention - school accountability reform consultation

The Department for Education launched a consultation on 3 February 2025 seeking views on its proposed policy for school accountability and intervention. The accompanying consultation document (School accountability reform – school profiles, improvement and intervention) provides a clear insight on how future policy in this area is proposed to develop, covering the intervention regime when a school requires ‘special measures’ or ‘significant improvement’, is deemed ‘stuck’, or requires other targeted intervention. 

Combined with the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, the school accountability consultation clarifies some of the detail of how the new intervention regime will impact on schools and the roles and responsibilities of schools under the accountability framework, as well as covering proposals to introduce school profiles to enable parents and other stakeholders to view a range of information about a school in a single place.

The school accountability consultation also includes information on the role of the Department’s new Regional Improvement for Standards and Excellence (RISE) teams. Consisting of leaders from the sector and supported by the Department’s Regions Group, the RISE teams are intended to provide a range of intervention support to schools. RISE teams are expected to be supplemented by the need, in some circumstances, for ‘structural intervention’ (i.e. where a maintained school is required to become an academy, or an academy is required to transfer to another trust). The announcement of the list of the first RISE advisers indicates that RISE teams will be dominated by leading practitioners from academy trusts.  

The school accountability consultation is running alongside and cross refers to a separate Ofsted consultation on proposed changes to the inspection process and new report cards. The Ofsted consultation includes the removal of the single word judgment for overall effectiveness and proposes a replacement of a five-point scale for different evaluation areas of ‘exemplary’, ‘strong’, ‘secure’, ‘attention needed’ or ‘causing concern’. Schools which are causing concern will be categorised as either ‘special measures’ (where the concerns are widespread) or ‘requires significant improvement’. The new regime will place a school into a category of concern if it is not providing an acceptable standard of education and/or the leadership does not have the capacity to improve. An unacceptable standard of education is one in which any evaluation area, except for leadership, is causing concern. 

The different types of intervention set out in the school accountability consultation can be broken down as follows:

• Schools requiring special measures – the Academies Act 2010 currently requires the Secretary of State to make an academy order for a school which is in special measures or requires significant improvement. If an academy is in special measures or requires significant improvement the policy has been for the academy to transfer to another academy trust. The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill is seeking to remove the statutory requirement to impose an academy order in such circumstances, with the Secretary of State instead having discretion to grant an academy order.

The proposed policy is that the default approach for schools and academies in special measures should be structural intervention. The result therefore appears very similar in outcome to the current regime, albeit academisation is the default rather than a requirement, leaving greater discretion for the Secretary of State (and potentially exposing the Secretary of State to a greater risk of legal challenges to academisation).

• Schools requiring significant improvement – whilst the capacity of the new RISE teams is being built, the short-term proposal is that structural intervention will again be the default approach (in practice therefore little change). From September 2026 though, the expectation is for RISE teams to deliver a bespoke package of support to such schools. The Ofsted proposal is for such schools to have five monitoring inspections in 18 months unless issues are resolved earlier. If then the relevant school is still causing concern, there would be a further inspection and if the school still requires significant improvement or has ‘attention needed’ ratings (see separate Ofsted consultation), the default approach would be for structural intervention. Other intervention powers for maintained schools and academies may also be imposed in parallel with the above arrangements – further departmental guidance is expected to be published following the closure of the school accountability consultation. 
• Stuck schools – under the previous Government, schools which had two or more overall Ofsted judgments of less than good (2RI+) were subject to academisation. Following the election the current Government changed this approach with academy orders for some 2RI+ schools revoked (when a conversion was scheduled to take place after 1 January 2025).

The School accountability consultation provides that RISE intervention will be introduced for eligible schools, being those:

• which were due to receive structural intervention after 1 January 2025 but have had their intervention revoked; and/or
• graded requires improvement or equivalent at their most recent Ofsted inspection and graded below good at their previous inspection – i.e. those meeting the ‘stuck’ definition; and
• which have not had a change of structure since their last inspection.

Once Ofsted report cards are introduced, the proposal is to update the definition of stuck schools to ‘schools which receive an attention needed rating against leadership and governance, which were graded below good – or equivalent - at their previous Ofsted inspection’. Rather than moving straight to structural intervention, the policy allows for time for the RISE intervention. In the event a stuck school supported by a RISE intervention does not achieve new secure ratings (see separate Ofsted consultation) within two years, structural intervention is to apply. For those schools which are already stuck (from their most recent Ofsted inspection), the two-year improvement period will run from the date of the introduction of the new Ofsted school report cards. For schools which become stuck after the introduction of the report cards, the two-year period starts when the inspection report is published. The approach in short is to grant more time to Stuck schools, but if that does not work then the structural intervention will apply.  

• Other targeted intervention – the School accountability consultation also proposes that in between Ofsted inspections, where ‘there are concerning levels of pupil attainment, including large year-on-year declines’, RISE teams will also engage with schools, via their responsible bodies (academy trusts/local authorities).

The Department has indicated an initial £20 million investment in RISE teams and up to £100,000 for each ‘stuck’ school, but has not yet expanded on the specifics of the funding arrangements. MATs looking to take on schools subject to intervention will have been disappointed by the combined effect of the withdrawal of the academy conversion support grant and the Trust Capacity Fund. Whilst this investment holds some promise, it remains to be seen what precise funding measures will be put in place to support academy trusts which may be taking on schools via structural intervention. The detail of the precise funding support which may be put in place for schools subject to intervention will be keenly awaited.

Stakeholders have until 28 April 2025 to respond on the School accountability consultation.