93% of school leaders do not support the Government’s policy to force all schools to become academies, according to a teachers’ union survey.

The National Union of Teachers (NUT) poll, which was completed by 831 leadership group members, also found only 1% of school leaders think that the Government ‘makes decisions on school improvement policy based on evidence.’

In his recent Budget, George Osborne set out plans to convert every primary and secondary school in the country into academies by 2020.

This was immediately met with scepticism. The chair of the LGA’s children and young people board, Cllr Roy Perry, responded that only 15% of academy chains perform above the national average compared to 44% of councils.

‘With mixed evidence about academisation improving standards and when public spending is facing significant cuts, imposing academisation on schools regardless of local opinion cannot be an appropriate use of public money,’ the councillor said.

At the 2016 NUT conference, held in Brighton at the weekend, teachers called for a one-day strike against plans for forced academisation.

The Department of Education accused the union of ‘playing politics with our children's future’, and the education secretary Nicky Morgan insisted there was no ‘reverse gear’ on the reforms.

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