AN academy chain has been hauled over the coals by the education watchdog after inspectors found that an “overwhelming” proportion of pupils attending some of its schools are not receiving an adequate education.

In a highly critical letter to the Kemnal Academies Trust (TKAT), which runs 39 schools in the south-east, Ofsted said that while the trust’s support for its schools was improving, in many cases this had come too late.

Inspectors visited six TKAT primary academies over a two-week period amid wider concerns that standards were not up to scratch.

One was found to be failing and placed into special measures and a further three were judged to “require improvement.” 

The other two were rated as “good.” Inspectors warned that this showed that an overwhelming proportion of pupils attending one of these six academies are not getting a good education.

Teaching was not good enough in many cases to ensure that all pupils made good progress, inspectors found, expectations for bright students were not high enough, there were weaknesses in children’s writing and maths skills, ineffective marking and feedback and a lack of urgency in taking action to close the gap between rich and poor pupils.

Less than half of TKAT’s schools are now considered “good,” the inspectorate said, and there are no longer any schools rated outstanding in the chain.

Campaign for State Education’s Michael Pyke told the Star the findings were “unsurprising” considering that, despite exhaustive research, no evidence has been found that converting schools into academies improves education.

“The hidden agenda for the academisation programme is to make schools available for privatisation,” he said.

A TKAT spokeswoman said: “We are committed to educational excellence and we will continue to work with our schools to implement changes.”