CHAIN EFFECTS 2018 - The impact of academy chains on low-income pupils - Merryn Hutchings and Becky Francis

The programme was originally aimed at transforming the lives of disadvantaged pupils.1 So has it worked? The Chain Effects series of reports2 has aimed to analyse the impact of academy chains on disadvantaged pupils in sponsored academies.3 This is the fifth and final report in the series, and reviews findings over the last four years as well as presenting the 2017 data. [...] Policy background Origin and development of the academies programme The academies programme was initiated by the Labour Government in 2000, with the opening of the first ‘City Academies’ in 2002. [...] While this inevitably limits the number of academies and chains included in the analysis, we have done this because the majority of pupils will have undertaken at least the most recent three years of their education within the chain, and so it seems reasonable to relate their outcomes and progress to the chain.50 We have not included free schools in our analyses, because the published data has onl. [...] The number and size of the chains we have been able to include in the report has increased over the years in line with the increased number of sponsored academies. [...] Attainment 8 and Progress 8 Figure 3 provides an overview of the performance of disadvantaged pupils in the analysis group chains in 2017, using Attainment 8 and Progress 8 figures It is important to note that the comparison is with the national figures for disadvantaged pupils in mainstream schools (represented by the axes on Figure 3).