The Government has dropped plans to force all schools in England to become academies in the face of opposition from teaching unions, Tory MPs and councils.
The U-turn by Education Secretary Nicky Morgan comes after a backlash to the proposal to take schools out of local authority control by 2022.
Ministers still hope that a large number of schools will choose to convert to academies, but the plan is now an "aspiration" rather than a compulsory policy, the Department for Education said.