Research on school accountability and collaboration calls for a national constitution for schools.

A report from the Fabian Society - Britain’s “oldest political think tank” - proposes that government should publish a national constitution for the school system in England, along the lines of the NHS constitution. The document would set out the rights, roles and responsibilities of children, parents, staff and the local community in the life of schools, in order to drive the next phase of education improvement.

The report says that we must rethink the environment in which schools operate and the way they achieve their outcomes, asking what success should look like in today’s schools. The report claims that maintaining excellent standards depends on collaboration within and between schools and that this dialogue needs to be at the heart of how schools improve in the future. Other recommendations include:

• Giving local authorities a role in supporting and holding to account all schools including academies
• Providing financial support for schools wishing to become a cooperative school, in the same way the government does for academy conversion
• Making full and meaningful consultation with parents, staff, pupils and the community a legal requirement before an academy conversion takes place
• Scrapping ‘academy orders’, whereby underperforming schools have been forced to convert to an academy regardless of local wishes.