It's good to see academy plan has been abandoned

The plan, announced in the budget in March, said that all schools, whether good, bad or indifferent, would have to make the change.

That would have seen them become independently run and overseen by an academy trust.

So far, so good. But the original idea with academies was to group under-performing schools with better schools in a bid to drive up standards.

That is against a backdrop of 85 per cent of Hampshire’s schools being judged ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ by Ofsted.

The government’s plan would have seen a blanket approach to all schools.

Previously, The News has reported that this had not gone down well.

In fact, the Conservative education boss at Hampshire County Council Peter Edgar had come out and criticised the idea.

He was joined by headteachers, who said a one-size-fits-all approach is not suitable for education.

And as we report today, there were fears that it could have seen some schools deemed to be economically unviable meaning they could have been closed.

So there is some relief at the decision to drop the plan.

And we support that. There are few more important things than making sure the education of the next generation is up to scratch.

Anything that could have a negative impact – however small – needs to be carefully considered.

In this case, the feeling from some was that not enough listening had been done before the announcement was made.

Maybe the lesson here is that the more discussion before, the more likely there will be a positive outcome.