Inadequate schools ‘left to fester’ by Tories, says Labour in academies row
Inadequate schools ‘left to fester’ by Tories, says Labour in academies row
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Dozens of underperforming schools have been forced to wait more than a year to reopen under new management. Dozens of schools rated inadequate by Ofsted have faced waits of more than a year before reopening, amid accusations from Labour that they were “left to fester” by the former Conservative government.
![[Bridget Phillipson]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/c0eff9f84857b3b61e8f37b7e42d2649b68dcb5d/183_419_5634_3381/master/5634.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
The state of schools and the future of academies has become the subject of an increasingly fraught political row. The Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch, accused Keir Starmer last week of “an act of vandalism” in new laws restricting freedoms enjoyed by academies.
However, insiders pointed to data showing that in the existing system, some underperforming schools had been left to wait for more than two years to be overhauled and reopened with new management. From 2022 to January 2025, 100 schools were converted into academies after being found to be inadequate by inspectors.
Of those, 41 had to wait more than a year to reopen, while 10 schools waited at least two years. There are a further 54 inadequate schools awaiting conversion, of which 39 have been in this process for more than a year. New teams will now be used to help these “stuck” schools – including some that are already academies – under plans by the education secretary, Bridget Phillipson.
“Too many schools have been left to fester by the Tories for too long, including many hundreds of academies,” said a government source. “The Tories’ criticism has nothing to do with improving the schools they let fail and everything to do with defending their dismal record.”.
