200 schools have taken on academy status since Michael Gove pushed through legislation to speed up process
More than one in 10 secondary schools in England is now an academy, double the number under the last government, according to official figures published today.
Just over 200 schools have been converted into academies since the education secretary, Michael Gove, pushed through legislation allowing all schools to acquire academy status. The majority of the new academies are schools rated outstanding by Ofsted – which were fast-tracked – but 68 weaker schools were granted academy status to help them improve.
A further 254 schools have applied for academy status, including 64 that applied in the week before Christmas, the Department for Education said.
Gove said: "I am delighted that more schools are opening as academies this week, and are now free from central and local bureaucratic control.
"Schools are taking up our offer to become academies because they recognise the huge benefits – more autonomy, more power to teachers, and an opportunity to thrive, free from interference from government."
A total of 371 secondary schools are now academies, the figures show, which means that 11% of all secondary schools in England are independent of local authorities.
Under Labour, the academies programme focused on turning weak or underperforming schools into academies, giving just over 200 better resources and greater freedom along with their new status. Under Gove's plans, the majority of schools are expected to turn into academies in the near future.
Academies can set their own pay and conditions for staff, set aside parts of the curriculum and change the length of the school day.
Figures published last summer showed that just over 1,900 schools – including, for the first time, primary schools – had expressed an interest in converting to academy status. Some 1,038 of these are rated outstanding.
In a statement released by the Department for Education, Mike Crawshaw, headteacher of one of the new academies, Debenham high school in Suffolk, said: "It will give us more day-to-day control to give families the sort of education they want: a broad, balanced and relevant curriculum; strong and clear discipline; extra academic and pastoral support for children that need it; and thriving music, sport and activities outside class."
Martin Watson, head of Lavington school in Wiltshire, said: "The freedoms around pay and conditions will enable us to reward those staff who take on additional responsibilities."
An inquiry by the National Audit Office, published last September, found that many of the academies set up under Labour were performing impressively.
But it warned the government that its attempt to accelerate the scheme could increase the risks "particularly around financial sustainability".
The NAO report found that the proportion of children on free school meals in neighbouring schools had not changed, dispelling suggestions that academies are cherry-picking children from better-off homes.
Commenting on figures released today by the Department for Education that show there are currently 407 academy schools open in England, Chris Keates, General Secretary of the NASUWT, the largest teachers' union, said: "This is no cause for celebration. The clear motivation for academy status is that most schools are being duped into believing that they will get extra money at a time when schools and education are facing savage cuts."