Teachers fume over academies obsession

The National Audit Office (NAO) said that many of the 203 secondaries which already took on academy status performed "impressively."

But the spending watchdog cautioned that academies' performance could not be used as an accurate guide to how the model will perform when expanded.

NAO head Amyas Morse said: "Existing academies have been primarily about school improvement in deprived areas, while new academies will often be operating in very different educational and social settings."

It warned that the accelerating expansion of the programme threatened to impact "significantly on teaching and learning, financial health and longer-term sustainability."

More than 25 per cent of academies may need additional state funding to secure their future, according to the Department of Education.

The department has spent £3.2 billion on the scheme since its launch in 2002, including £288 million in start-up grants to newly opened academies.

The report found that the proportion of academy pupils from poor backgrounds had declined since 2002 and the attainment gap between these pupils and their more affluent classmates had widened.

National Union of Teachers general secretary Christine Blower said that the findings showed that "this break-up of our education system simply benefits those who are already advantaged."

Ms Blower added that at a time when every public service was facing huge cuts the fact that academies may need additional funding was "a total and unnecessary waste of public money."

She called for "a return to policies that will ensure a good local school for every child operating within the local authority."

Fellow union ATL deputy general secretary Martin Johnson criticised the NAO for failing to make the connection between pupil performance and intake in academies.

"Many of there are using the age-old technique of improving their results by admitting pupils who are likely to do well in exams," he alleged.

NASUWT union leader Chris Keates added: "In the face of a wealth of evidence, if the government proceeds with its obsessive promotion of academies and free schools, it will demonstrate that it is hell-bent on wrecking a state system that provides high-quality education for all children."