Two outstanding ARK academies, King Solomon in Westminster and St Albans in Birmingham, were centre stage in a BBC Radio 4 programme, "Inside the Academy Revolution," made by The Guardian's Zoe Williams.
In the programme, Ms Williams heard how high expectations of every child, a culture of hard work and good behaviour all help to raise achievement dramatically. Parents, pupils and teachers said how much they valued their schools and how much they'd achieved.
ARK Schools' chair, Paul Marshall explained ARK Schools' ambitions to provide an outstanding education for every pupil, why ARK set up its academy network and how academies and ARK can contribute to school improvement. "British education has suffered from 100 years of complacency. Essentially we have neglected our children," he said. "What is important to us is transforming children's lives"
Mr Marshall also said he recognises the need for accountability "There needs to be very strong accountability for all academies in the same way as for any other school. ... There probably needs to be a greater consistency in the challenge to academies to perform."
The programme is no longer available on iPlayer.