Academy trusts have been central to UK government vision for schools for years – but that may be changing

By Mark Boylan, Professor of Education, Sheffield Hallam University

The transformation of a local authority school into an academy is supposed to lead to school improvement. This seemed to be the case at Mossbourne Victoria Park academy in Hackney, at least in terms of its results and good-behaviour policies.

But the school has also recently received criticism from parents, who – as reported in the Observer – have described the way staff treat pupils as “scary” and as “psychological…

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