New guidance on intervention

In November 2024 the Department for Education published its updated statutory ‘Support and intervention in schools’ guidance (“the guidance”).

Whilst the guidance is for local authorities, it will be helpful for schools to be familiar with it as it sets out local authorities’ and the Regions Group’s intervention powers in respect of maintained schools which are “causing concern”, that are “eligible for intervention”, and other maintained schools with serious concerns which need to be addressed. It also sets out intervention guidance in respect of academy trusts.

The key changes to the guidance which schools should be aware of are:

• Removal of references to single head grades (“SHGs”) to reflect the recent updates announced by Ofsted, and replacement of references to ‘Inadequate’ with ‘requires significant improvement’ and ‘special measures’
• Amended references to 2RI+ policy
• Amended the revocation policy to reflect changes to SHGs and widened the scope of the policy to allow for 2RI+ Academy Orders to be revoked
• New information on the interim support offer, including eligibility.

Whilst the government has maintained that it considers it is “essential” to take action where a school receives a grading of ‘requires significant improvement’ or ‘special measures’, or where a school does not make necessary improvements, or where there is financial mismanagement or failure of governance, it has made a number of changes to its strategy to intervene in schools.

From early this year, new regional improvement teams (“RITs”) will be established to deliver support, working with leaders in struggling schools to develop improvement plans addressing areas of weakness. Alongside this, RITs will oversee and coordinate improvement programmes that are available to schools.

Schools with a warning notice

A warning notice may be given to a maintained school by the local authority or the Regional Group based on concerns relating to performance standards and safety. Broadly speaking, the Regions Group will only issue a warning notice where there has been a serious breakdown in the way the school is managed or governed, which is prejudicing, or likely to prejudice, standards of performance, or where the safety of pupils or staff at the school is threatened.

The local authority, on the other hand, may issue a warning notice for range of concerns, including where it considers that the standards of performance of pupils at the school are unacceptably low and are likely to remain so, and where the safety of pupils or staff at the school is threatened, including because of a breakdown of discipline.

Failure by a school to comply with a warning notice will likely lead to intervention and further action being taken. Some of the steps which may be taken include the appointment of additional governors, or appointment of an interim executive board. Ultimately, the school may be directed to close, although this power is reserved for instances where there is no prospect of the school making sufficient improvement through other means of support.

Schools judged ‘requires significant improvement’ or ‘special measures’ by Ofsted

Historically, an academy order must be issued by the Secretary of State where a school has been judged by Ofsted to be in a category of concern, requiring them to become sponsored academies. When this situation arises, there is no requirement for a consultation to be carried out to consider whether the conversion should take place.

However, the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill (“the Bill”) seeks to repeal the duty to make an Academy Order in relation to a School Causing Concern, and instead make this a discretionary power.

For the worst performing schools, the Secretary of State will be expected to issue an academy order. However, where appropriate the Secretary of State can make other requirements, such as use of Regional Improvement for Standards and Excellence (“RISE”) teams.

The Bill also sets out a power to secure performance of duties, by creating a power to direct academy trusts that are not complying with their legal duties, or are acting or proposing to act unreasonably.

Currently, when an academy trust is not complying with its duties it will be in breach of its funding agreement and may receive a Termination Warning Notice. If the trust fails to meet the conditions of the Termination Warning Notice, a Termination Notice may be issued. In some circumstances, if a trust has breached an obligation set out in the Academy Trust Handbook, it may receive a Notice to Improve and, if it does not comply, may subsequently receive a Termination Warning Notice followed by a Termination Notice. A Termination Notice would lead to the re-brokerage of the academy to a different academy trust which is often disruptive for pupils and parents.

The Bill proposes to create a new power for the Secretary of State to instead issue a compliance direction where an academy trust has breached its legal duties, or is acting unreasonably. The rationale behind this is to create more flexible intervention powers and what is considered to be a more proportionate remedy for a specific breach.

Interim support offer

Eligible schools are entitled to receive up to 10 days of support from a system leader, which will usually be a CEO of a high-quality MAT or a national leader of education (“NLE”). The aim of this support offer is to allow the leadership team an opportunity to put sustainable improvements in place and ensure actions align with the school’s central strategy for improvement.

To be eligible for this level of support, the school must:

• Be judged ‘Requires Improvement’ or lower and receive an additional ‘Requires Improvement’ grade in either ‘Leadership and Management’ or ‘Quality of Education’ sub judgement, between September 2024 and February 2025
• Be judged ‘‘requires significant improvement’ or ‘special measures’ between September 2024 and February 2025
• Have been eligible for intervention under the former “2RI+’ policy” where schools had previously received two or more consecutive judgements less than ‘Good’, but where the academy order has been revoked because conversion was scheduled after 2024.

Eligible schools that are part of a MAT will usually get support at trust level rather than school level. However, the school will get direct support if system leaders decide that it would be more effective.

Practical steps

It is important to be mindful of the changes to the intervention steps that can be taken. Preparation for Ofsted inspections can place a school in a far more favourable position for inspection, however, schools should ensure that they are familiar with the process to challenge an Ofsted inspection where appropriate.

We are aware that an increasing number of schools are facing more complex behavioural issues, some of which put students and staff members at risk. Whilst the threshold for a school to be considered to be failing in its discipline to the extent that the safety of pupils or staff at the school is threatened is relatively high, schools should ensure that behaviour incidents are treated appropriately and that the school’s behaviour and exclusions policies align with the Department for Education’s current guidance, and are implemented consistently throughout the school.