The expansion of the academies programme has been one of the biggest changes to the English education system in a generation. 3.4 million children are now taught in either a sponsored or a converter academy. Those children will have been educated in schools with different governance arrangements, potentially a different curriculum and different approaches to teaching practices, structures and qualifications.

The impact of academies on educational outcomes brings together research conducted in 2016 by both the London School of Economics and the Education Policy Institute on both the performance of different types of academies as well as that of Multi-Academy Trusts and local authorities.

Our principal finding through this extensive study is that academies do not provide an automatic solution to school improvement. As we demonstrate throughout this report, there is significant variation in performance at both different types of academies and Multi-Academy Trusts.