Head teachers heckle Education Secretary Nick Morgan over plan to force schools to become academies

Head teachers have heckled the Education Secretary as she defended the Government’s plans to force all school to become academies in a speech.

Nicky Morgan was speaking at the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) conference when she angered some delegates by claiming the Government’s policy would allow schools to “make the right choice”.

She met with pointed laughter, jeering, and cries of “rubbish” by senior teachers as she said her “door was always open” to the teaching profession.

In response to the cries, she said: “I hear the strength of feeling in the hall”.

“On current projections, around three-quarters of secondary and a third of primary schools would convert to academy status by 2020,” she told head teachers in the speech.

“Before the white paper was published I was constantly being asked, at events like this one, whether this government wanted all schools to become academies.”

Teachers, head teachers, Labour, Conservative, and Liberal Democrat MPs, as well as local government leaders from all those parties have criticised the policy.

Just three per cent of school leaders polled by the National Union of Teachers believed the policy is appropriate, according to the union.

A September poll conducted by PTA UK found that 97 per cent of parents would like to be asked before their schools were turned into academies, while polling by ICM conducted in 2014 found that 57 per cent of people oppose academy schools in general compared to just 32 per cent who support them.

There are signs the Government may face a backbench rebellion on the policy after some Conservative MPs, particularly those with rural village schools in their constituencies, quietly indicated that they were opposed.

George Osborne unveiled the plan to convert every school in England into an academy by 2020 in his March Budget. The move would essentially end the century-long role local authorities have in managing education.

The policy's proponents say it will raise standards in schools by giving them more autonomy, while its critics say it amounts to replacing local authorities with centralised Whitehall control.

Some head teachers and parents are also angry about the Government’s plan for harder testing for seven and 11 year old children, with some saying the policy is setting children up to fail.

Ms Morgan tried to allay those fears, telling the conference: “As you know, if a school meets the progress standard it is above the floor altogether. We have made sure all who hold schools accountable are aware of this too, and we will continue to do so.

“Historically, the floor standard has identified only a small proportion of schools every year which are below that standard - and this year I can reassure you that no more than 1 per cent more schools will be below the floor standard than last year.”