Former Government advisor warns Labours controversial curbs on academy schools will turn back the clock on educational standards

A former Government advisor has pledged to fight Labour’s academy reforms, saying they ‘turn back the clock’.

Meg Powell-Chandler said academies have ‘improved the lives of millions of children’ and taking away their freedoms will set standards into reverse.

She was instrumental in supporting the academies programme as special advisor to Damian Hinds, who was Tory education secretary between 2018 and 2019.

Now she is launching a drive to save it from Labour’s Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, which will take away freedoms on curriculum, teacher recruitment and pay and conditions.

Ms Powell-Chandler has just been appointed director of the New Schools Network (NSN), a charity which once was paid by the Tory government to support academies.

Today, it is launching a new drive to ‘champion school freedoms that the Bill imperils’ and ‘make the case to revive the free schools programme’, which is currently under review.

Academies are state schools that are free from council control, with more freedom to innovate and answerable directly to central Government.Free schools are a type of academy set up by local groups, such as church communities.

Ms Powell-Chandler said: ‘It is a very important time for all of us who believe passionately that free schools and academies have improved the lives of millions of children.

Former Government adviser Meg Powell-Chandler has said Labours academy reforms would turn back the clock. Education Secretary Ms Phillipson speaking to reporters at Westminster on January 8

‘The Government is right to focus on raising standards in education, but the proposed legislation risks doing the exact opposite, turning back the clock on one of the most transformative periods of educational reform in recent history.

‘The freedoms granted to academies and free schools have been the foundation of their success, enabling them to innovate and excel.

‘We know a one size fits all approach doesn’t work for pupils, why should it work for schools?’

The NSN was funded by the Tory government to help those setting up new free schools, although this ended in 2022.

Under the Bill, academies would have to follow the national curriculum, and their teachers will need to have, or be in the process of achieving, qualified teacher status (QTS).

Critics have said this would stop schools from innovating in lesson planning, and hiring experts in their fields who are not trained teachers.

Education Secretary Ms Phillipson delivering a keynote address last week. Labours new Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill will take away freedoms from academy schools

The Bill would also make academies adhere to national pay and conditions standards, although ministers have clarified there would be ‘no ceiling’ on what academy teachers could be paid.

David Ross, chair of trustees at NSN and David Ross Education Trust, said: ‘I am not alone as a Trust leader in fearing that the current proposals will damage the futures of thousands of children across our country.

‘We risk ideologically dismantling the most significant cross-party achievement of the last two decades and taking our education system backwards.’

There are over 650 free schools and 10,000 academies in England.