Primary school applying to become an Academy, any experiences out there, good & bad

[Urbanvoltaire]

Local primary school is planning on becoming an Academy, has anyone gone through this process & if so what are your thoughts?

Thanks in advance.

[pointythings]

DD2's school became an Academy this school year. I'm a bit about it, I've always felt Academy status and the extra money that seems to come with it should be used to transform failing schools, not thrown at nice leafy schools like ours.

So far nothing has changed other than that there seems to be more money sloshing around - swanky new website, musical instrument loan scheme at no cost to parents. Online payment facility for school dinners has gone as the Council provides this, so it's back to cheques, which is a pain. There's talk of a House system but only designated by PE T-shirts in plain colours which aren't extortionately priced - no nonsense about blazer and ties (yet).

It still seems to be the same good and happy school I chose originally but I'm watching this space.

[Urbanvoltaire]

Thanks pointy I'm wondering what changes will be had.....and am not convinced the leadership team will be up to managing the school away from the LEA. I feel the school might become more of an island without the LEA. Hmmm....if it ain't broke don't fix it.

[academyblues]

Why does the school want to become an academy, do you know?

[Urbanvoltaire]

It's "outstanding" at present & in order to further improve, the Head feels that with more money (without the lea creaming their bit) the school can become even better ......more freedom to choose how they spend the direct funding from Whitehall.

[pointythings]

Same with ours - it's rated good but with many outstanding features. I'm sceptical because we are in a smallish town with two primaries. The pattern has always been that this one has been particularly good with able kids and the other has been particularly good with SN kids. IMO they both deserve extra money, but ours has been rated higher so has got it. This is on the basis of an OFSTED in 2009, when there were exceptionally strong Yr 2 and Yr 4 cohorts, which oddly enough seems to have been a trend across the wider region. I wonder if the govt put something in the water in those years?

I'm because I fear that the money will prove to be a distraction from what really matters - the excellent teaching, the superb pastoral care, the warmth and caring of the school - all in the drive to 'prove' that the school is worthy of Academy status. And as I've said, I'd have preferred the money to go to the very deprived struggling school in the neighbouring town, the one with the good value added scores and the very difficult intake.

[academyblues]

The school is 'outstanding' but you as a parent aren't convinced that the leadership team will be up to managing the school away from the LA?

Seriously?

pointy, my dc's school in a very deprived area is currently fighting NOT to become an academy, along with a significant proportion of schools in the borough. They nearly all have a musical instrument loan scheme at no cost to parents, in class music tuition for all KS2 pupils. That's about the school's priorities, nothing to do with being an academy.

[prh47bridge]

pointythings - This isn't a choice between the money going to the Academy or the deprived, struggling school. There is no extra money in total. The extra money the Academy receives is money that would previously have gone to the LA to fund central services. The LA still provides some services to the Academy and receives funding for that. The Academy receives the funding that would previously have gone to the LA to cover those services no longer provided by the LA. So if your school had not converted the only effect would be that the LA would have more money for central services and would be providing central services for more pupils. There would be no money freed up that could be paid to the struggling school.

As your school has converted it is required to support a weaker school and help it to improve standards. You may find it is actually supporting the struggling school to which you refer.

[prh47bridge]

academyblues - There is no way your LA should be trying to force schools to become academies. However, I would note that some academies take part in musical instrument loan schemes at no cost to parents. It is, as you say, about the school's priorities.

[academyblues]

prh, it's not the LA trying to force academy status, it's the DofE. The LA is fighting it.

[prh47bridge]

academyblues - Sorry. I confused you with another poster a while ago who said her LA was forcing schools to convert. You are talking about the plan to force the 200 weakest primary schools in the country to convert to academy status and give them new management.

My view is that something clearly needs to be done since these schools have fallen below the minimum standards for 5 years and many of them for much longer, although IIRC you say that your school met the minimum standard this year. Whether conversion to academy status is the right solution is another question. I guess that depends on whether you think the LA is part of the problem or part of the solution. Not being familiar with the schools and LA in question I am not going to offer an opinion on that.

[academyblues]

No, I'm talking about Gove's targetting of specific LAs. He has informed the LA that his dept want nearly one third of the schools in the borough to convert. He's changed his strategy from individual schools to particular areas.

What 'minimum standards' mean keeps changing. I seem to remember us disagreeing about terms like 'weakest' and 'failing'. Many of the schools in question (ours certainly) have had over 50% mobility during KS2 for the recent years taking their SATS; I'd say it's crazy to judge a school to be failing based on the performance of children who have only been there a year or so (a good few arriving in year 5 or 6 still in the early stages of learning English for example).

In contrast, children who stay in the school throughout progress well. My neighbour's dd got 3 secure level 5s a couple of years ago having been there since reception and parents generally DON'T move their children from there when they move. Half of reception intake was siblings this year, indicating a slowing down of pupil mobility and a faith in the school (nearby schools were undersubscribed, ours wasn't).

My view is also that something has to be done and I don't think reducing 7 years of education to a few SATS papers, applying some unfathamable formula, using percentages on small populations and extrapolating sweeping generalisations from them is it tbh.

[prh47bridge]

The minimum standard was set this time last year and is has not changed since then. The requirement is that 60% of pupils achieve level 4 in English and maths by the age of 11 and at least an average level of progress between the age of 7 and 11. I don't see that as an unfathomable formula, or are you referring to CVA - I would agree that is unfathomable.

There are roughly 200 schools that have failed to achieve the minimum standard for 5 years or more.

I presume from what you are saying that your school is in the next tier up. There are 500 schools that have fallen below the minimum standard for three or four of the last five years.

The initial intention was simply to ask the LAs to draw up plans for improving them. However, the data revealed that 9 LAs had particularly high concentrations of the worst 700 schools. Between 100 and 200 of the schools are in just 9 LAs, each of which has over 10 of these schools. The remaining 500 or so underperforming schools are spread across over 120 LAs. The underperforming schools in these 9 LAs are coming under intense pressure. However, they will not be forced to convert if they can demonstrate an upwards trajectory at KS2 and/or participation in a successful federation of schools.

By the way, the data shows that if you go back 3 or 4 years you will find that the same 9 LAs had high concentrations of the poorest schools and, by and large, it was the same schools.

So your LA has not been targeted at random. It has been targeted because it has a particularly high concentration of underperforming primary schools.

I am not saying that converting these schools to academies is the correct course of action. I don't know whether or not it will produce the desired improvement in standards.

[academyblues]

Exactly, the current minimum standard was set last year, yet it is that which is being used in the retrospective analysis. At least secondary schools have been informed in advance when the goal posts will change.

It's a massive gamble with children's education. 50% of schools converted to academies improve, 50% don't, some of these get significantly worse.

Btw, the latest information we've been supplied with is that Gove is no longer talking about replacing heads and SMTs, which rather makes me think that improving attainment is not primary agenda.

[prh47bridge]

Yes, the current minimum standard was set last year. However, I understand that if the previous minimum standard had been used it would have made no difference. Exactly the same schools and LAs would have been on the list.

I don't think your stats about what happens to schools converting are correct. I can't find the figures at the moment but my recollection is that the majority have improved and have done so faster than other schools in their areas. You could, of course, argue that this was because the existing academies were failing schools prior to conversion.

[academyblues]

Have 'failing' schools become academies then? I thought that it was those judged to be 'good' or 'outstanding' that this has been possible for up to now.

The stats are inevitable very tentative; there's no long-term evaluation of academies as they haven't been around long enough.

[JuliaScurr]

Our dd's secondary went academy with no consultation; we were later told the SN money would now be spent on more G&T instead of put in the LEA SN pool. How very generous.

[academyblues]

Did the school choose to change to academy status? Our LA told us that, at present, parents must be 'consulted with' and schools can't be converted against the wishes of the governing body.

This is likely to change quite soon, I believe.

[prh47bridge]

academyblues - Academies were set up by the last government in 2000. At the time of the last election there were 203 in existence. They were failing schools prior to conversion. However, these were all secondary schools. Primary school academies are new. The new academies are also different in that they do not require an external sponsor.

JuliaScurr - There is a lot of misinformation and misunderstanding about SEN funding and academies.

When a school converts to an academy the LA remains responsible for:

• home-to-school transport
  
• ed psych, statementing and assessment of SEN
  
• monitoring of SEN provision, parent partnerships, etc.
  
• individually assigned SEN resources for pupils needing expensive tailored provision
  
• provision of PRUs or other forms of education for pupils no longer registered at an academy
  

The LA continues to receive the funding for those items.

Individually assigned funding for pupils with special needs continues to be paid through the LA who will ensure that the statement of SEN is fulfilled by monitoring the service provided by the academy. This is exactly the same as happens with a maintained school.

The academy is responsible for provision of SEN support services. Most LAs already delegate this part of their budget to maintained schools so a school converting to an academy will see no change.

[academyblues]

julia, was your dd's school judged to be 'failing' when it converted? How is it doing now?

Another poster was saying the other day that the academies in her town were purposefully managing SEN pupils into a PRU, and she was concerned about her daughter. What would be the benefit to an academy of doing that? Isn't there some move to make heads accountable for the continued education of pupils moved into a PRU?

One of our local secondary schools has just converted, against the wishes of the majority of the parents and teaching staff - like most 'consultations', it was pretty much lip service.

[JuliaScurr]

No, dd is at a successful girls' grammar school. The Head stated this was unlikely to have many behavioural SN, so it was wasting the SN allocation by pooling it with the LEA.

[academyblues]

Your dd's successful grammar school converted voluntarily, I assume?

Do you know why there was no parental consultation and what the reasons were for converting?

Do you mean that the head decided not to purchase SEN provision from the LA, but gets it from somewhere else or there actually isn't aren't any SEN needs in the school that need provision? Doesn't SEN include dyslexia etc, which surely every secondary school encounters?

[JuliaScurr]

The Head is of the opinion that SN of other people's kids should not concern us and we should want to hang on to 'our share' of the SN money from central govt and spend it on eg G&T. Selfish, imo. Yes, it was voluntary. I think the idea is that 'our' SN aren't that severe, just eg dyslexia, so we shouldn't have to pool cash we'd never use

[academyblues]

So was that one of the reasons that the school wanted to convert? To redirect its SEN cash, or was that just a consequence?

What you describe, where some pupils become more 'desirable' to schools in terms of their low impact on budgets and, academy or not, beneficial effect on school statistics (attendance, SATS, GCSE results) is something that really concerns me with 'failing' schools being threatened with being forced to become academies. Given that the government continues to increase the threshold of what 'failing' means (eg 'satisfactory' is not longer going to be, um, satisfactory), there will be increasing pressure on schools to 'manage out' less desirable sections of the community.

I know this happens already (locally, there are several primary schools who have deliberately courted the middle classes to make their statistics easier, and other 'good' or 'outstanding' schools that exclude rather a lot of pupils), but at present the emphasis is on the LA supporting schools that are struggling with their stats, rather than cutting them off from automatic LA provision (yes, I know schools can continue to buy LA provision for as long as there are LAs and who knows how long that will be).

[prh47bridge]

JuliaScurr - Either you have misunderstood what the head teacher said or he has misunderstood the way Academies receive SEN funding.

An Academy receives two types of SEN funding. Firstly, the LA provides individually assigned funding for named pupils with SEN. It then monitors the Academy to ensure that the named pupils receive the required provision. That is exactly the same thing that happens in maintained schools.

Secondly, because the Academy is responsible for provision of SEN support services it receives some money from the Government which would previously have gone to the LA. The amount of this grant depends on how much the LA is holding back for these services (in many LAs this is next to nothing with all schools expected to provide SEN support services out of their own budgets) and the number of children attending the Academy who are registered as being on School Action or School Action Plus.

So if the school has two pupils with SEN it will get funding for two pupils - equivalent to the amount the LA would spend on two SEN pupils. The Academy should be using that money to provide SEN support services for those pupils. They could, if they wish, pay the LA to provide those services provided the LA is willing to do so at a satisfactory price. Of course, if they have any money left over after providing support services to the SEN pupils they can use it however they want.

academyblues - Yes, some academies try to manage SEN pupils out of the school. Many maintained schools also try to get rid of SEN pupils, although no-one seems to be kicking up a fuss about that. It is a situation I come across far too regularly. In maintained schools SEN children are roughly 9 times as likely to get permanently excluded as non-SEN children. They are also much more likely to receive fixed term exclusions (legal) and informal or unofficial exclusions (illegal). Either SEN children are much worse behaved than their non-SEN peers or schools generally are not very good at dealing with such children.

[academyblues]

".......no-one seems to be kicking up a fuss about that......"

Really? What about maintained schools like ours who very much don't 'manage out' any part of the community, but are being deemed 'failing' because their stats aren't fantastic, by people like your good self who admit they don't know anything about the school or LA but seen confident to regurgitate Gove's ideological rhetoric about 'failing schools' at any opportunity.

Just saying, like.