Education

DfE announces £33.5m for academies to drive improvements

Academies in England will receive a package of over £33m to help drive improvement in the education system, the Department for Education (DfE) has announced today.

High-performing academy trusts are being encouraged to grow and support more schools across England supported by £17m.

Alongside this the Government is setting out more details on a new package of support, worth an estimated £16.5million, to support underperforming schools to improve their leadership.

Education secretary, Damian Hinds, said: “Strong academy trusts across the country are already supporting schools in many of the communities that need it the most and this funding will help this to happen in even more areas.

“Academies are at the heart of our reforms to education and just last week new data revealed that the last year has seen 80,000 more children studying in good or outstanding sponsored academies.

“We must continue to give these charitable institutions the opportunity to turn around more schools.”

The Trust Capacity Fund will be used by high performing academy trusts to build on the rising standards in many sponsored academy schools.

Figures published last week showed that there are 380,000 children now studying in good or outstanding sponsored academies that were previously underperforming council-run schools.

The figures also found that seven in ten previously under-performing schools have been rated good or outstanding by Ofsted since becoming an academy, compared to one in ten under local authority control.

The Trust Capacity Fund will launch in September and providing funding until the end of the financial year.