A junior education minister has sent 17 warning letters to academies due to inadequate standards of education.

All of the state-funded academies now face the prospect of intervention if they cannot improve. Pre-warning letters are part of the monitoring process for sponsored academies who have been taken on by educational trusts specifically to instigate improvement.

The letters have been issued by junior education minister Lord Nash and his predecessor Lord Hill as the levels of improvement seen so far have not been adequate. 

A Department for Education (DfE) spokesman said: "The majority of sponsored academies are thriving under great leadership. Their GCSE results are improving far faster than in other state-funded secondary schools.

"This is despite sponsored academies taking over from schools that were consistently underperforming, which can take time to reverse."

He added it is only the results of a few sponsored academies which are remaining "stubbornly low" and the DfE will not continue to tolerate long-term underperformance in any school, even if it is an academy.

If results do not get better, the 17 academies face the prospect of having a change of management.

Five of the warning letters were sent to schools in one academy chain - Academies Enterprise Trust - which has been prevented from any further expansion until current issues are resolved.

In response, the Academies Enterprise Trust assured stakeholders and the government that it was working to ensure a rapid and sustained improvement in the institutions in question.

A spokesman explained the academies listed by the DfE have a history of underperformance and improvement would take a longer time to be represented in test results, as many of the pupils start life in the academies with attainment levels well below the national average for their age.

As somebody looking for a secondary teaching job or a teacher who already works in a sponsored academy, do you think these pre-warning letters are fair? How long should an academy have to reverse the fortunes of a school?

Let us know what you think about the subject.