Please explain to me the benefits/drawbacks of becoming an academy?

As I've already pointed out, the new academies are not required to have an external sponsor. In general it is expected that they won't have one. That does not, of course, prevent Oasis from founding new churches.

Steve Chalke is the senior minister of church.co.uk, a network of community churches. He is also a special adviser to the United Nations Global Initiative to Fight Human Trafficking.

Oasis are publicly and explicitly against any form of homophobia in their schools. I don't know them in detail so you may be right about them being bigoted, obscurantist and fundamentalist but a quick look at their website suggests to me that they are fairly mainstream Christian. They say their values for their schools include:

• Serving and respecting everyone regardless of their gender, marital status, race, ethnic origin, religion or belief, age, sexual orientation or physical and mental capability.

• Acknowledging the freedom of people of all beliefs or none both to hold and to express their beliefs and convictions respectfully and freely, within the framework of the law.

• Never imposing our Christian beliefs on others but seeking to behave in a Christ-like way with everyone.

Steve Chalke has said you can be a Christian school or a school for Christians but you can't be both. My understanding is that Oasis set out to be Christian schools, i.e. schools built on the values of Christianity but which are suitable for children of any or no faith.

There are twelve Oasis academies at present, and according to the organisation itself more are planned.

Oasis is an organisation founded on a bigoted and obscurantist, fundamentalist Christian position.

It is amongst other things, homophobic.

Steve Chalke who is the founder and leader of the movement while originally being an ordained Baptist minister now runs his own network of churchs which he founded and controls.

I am outraged that he is getting support from the taxpayer; and I could not in conscience send a child there. I would regard the conversion of a secondary school to one of his academies as being a disgraceful infringement of the freedom of belief of most parents in the area.

Since this thread is about converting to academies, yes I was indeed referring to them. They have to have 2 parent governors but no maximum is laid down. No more than a third of the governors can be academy staff and there can be no more than one LA governor. There is no minimum for academy stoff nor is there any requirement to have an LA governor. Therefore the new academies can have only parent governors if they want. In practise it is expected that most will replicate their existing governing body.

The new academies receive a grant of £25k towards startup costs.

Academies are not exempt from the law re SEN and admissions. That's why they have to have regard to the statutory requirements - to make sure they stay within the law. It is EXACTLY the same thing as the obligation of state maintained schools to stay within the law.

47bridge your comment They are required to have a minimum of 2 parent governors but no maximum is laid down. perhaps applies to the new Academies ?
It's certainly not the case with the Acadamised ( against massive opposition from parents ) school DC goes to . The sponsor dictated the make up of the Governing Body in the Funding Agreement and we have one token parent governor ,no staff governor ,and 3 sponsor reps .
Also - old style Academies got "start up" funding which I'm sure didn't just cover things like VAT .
And as I understand it they only have to " have regard " to statutory requirements re SEN and admissions (and the latter they can change subject to " consultation " )not the same thing as the obligation of state maintained schools to stay wiyhin the law.

I am indeed, Talkinpeace. Well, I suppose that is reassuring in a way, wouldn't like to hear of another one like it.

I went to their first open evening for new applicants when they were just starting out as an academy. The Oasis people were standing in the foyer so I walked up and asked if the school had disabled access. Not only did they not know (!) but it did not occur to anyone to actually go and look(!); they told us they couldn't answer that question. We went and looked ourselves and the place very obviously didn't. It took me 4 bloody weeks of exchanging emails to get them to answer a few simple questions about SN provision- and all the time the deadline was getting closer. We were told that they would cherish dd and every other child in accordance with their Christian principles, but nothing at all (despite frantic email enquiries) about how she would keep up with her learning if she couldn't actually physically get to the classrooms.

Phew.
You are talking about Mayfield!!
My catchment is Lordshill :-0

I'm on the South Coast, east of the Itchen.

ah, you're not!
I thought I recognised the school you were describing.
ye gods, there's more of them!!!

where's snotterton, talkinpeace?

cory
are you on the east side of snotterton?

re exclusions: What happened to our academy was that they were found to exclude as many children as the entire rest of the (fairly large) city together! Of course I don't know the individual case histories, but I do know that their SN provision and their willingness to even think about SN was pretty non-existent (having interviewed them myself about my own SN dd): they spouted plenty of Christian sentiment and had no constructive suggestions about anything.

"Academies are free to set teacher's pay. That means they can set rates that are higher or lower than those in LA schools. If they set them too low they will, of course, struggle to attract and retain staff."

And what then happens to the pupils? Our academy lost 29 (!) staff within the first few weeks- not a matter of pay but of dissatisfaction with the chaotic organisation. This didn't actually mean that the pupils were in a position to vote with their feet- they had to stay at this teetering understaffed school whether they liked it or not, because all the other schools were full. Teachers can choose whether to move elsewhere or even whether to choose a new profession, teenagers cannot choose whether to go to school or not.

Cory - I wish I could reassure you on that but realistically I don't think I can at the moment. This is one of the areas that needs to be improved. There is certainly a concern that some academies have been excluding pupils illegally. The Education Department say they are working on it but this really needs to be sorted out. There are conflicting objectives here - on the one hand the government want to make it easier for teachers to discipline unruly pupils, on the other hand they need to ensure that academies aren't misusing exclusions. Regarding SEN specifically, the LA remains responsible for ensuring that the services required by individual pupils are delivered, regardless of whether the pupil is at an LA school or an academy.

Happilyconfused - So many misconceptions in a single post...

Academies will not be able to take in fee paying children.

Academies have to take in their fair share of excluded children. The LA can direct them to admit excluded children if necessary.

Academies are still answerable to the local admissions forum, the Schools Adjudicator and the LGO. They are also subject to the Admissions Code and the relevant legislation. They cannot redraw catchment areas in the way you suggest.

Teachers are not kicked out of the TPS. Any teachers employed by the academy are automatically members of the TPS unless the teacher concerned chooses to opt out.

Academies are free to set teacher's pay. That means they can set rates that are higher or lower than those in LA schools. If they set them too low they will, of course, struggle to attract and retain staff.

Academies do not have to fund their own building projects - at least, no more than any other school. As for any other school they can apply to the government for capital funding. Academies will receive the money which previously went to the LA for matters such as repair and maintenance of kitchens.

Yeh - great for Tiffins as they maybe be able to take in some fee paying kids as well as freebies. Most schools will not be able to do that. It will create sink schools as the the kids on the exclusion carousels will have fewer places to go. The redrawing of catchment areas to avoid difficult areas will be hard to prevent in the long term as authorities will be dealing with private companies.

I think that the teacher contracts also change. I think they are kicked out of the TPS and have to enter a new scheme. I was told that the largest saving will be linked to staff salaries.

Another problem is that schools have to fund their own buidling projects and repairs.

That sounds like good news. I am very uncomfortable about the sponsor thing.

Another thing that has been disastrous about our academy has been its tendency to exclude pupils at the slightest sign of trouble. Coupled with the fact that they have very poor SEN provision this is a major problem. Can you reassure me on this point also, prh? Will the new academies have to actually deal with SN, rather than just excluding the child on the spectrum who has a meltdown?

The new academies will not generally have any outside sponsors, unlike the existing academies which had to have a sponsor. The LA does not have any power to force the new academies into the hands of any particular outside sponsor, so what happened at Cory's local secondary should not happen with any new academies.

Cory, yup, it is.

My catchment school (which was known as yob central before) was merged into an academy year before last.
Their intake should be 180. This september it was around 70 - not being an LEA school they do not have to do a dfe school profile confirming the numbers. Their new building is going ahead - for a capacity of 900. By the time its finished, the school will be at around the 400 mark on roll.

And the impact? - Every primary that does not feed into it is chocca. Its feeders are half empty. The secondaries all around had their largest ever intake year. DD's school took an extra 20 kids into year 7.

The head of the academy is a very nice man. He has God on his side but not reality. I chatted to him at length but made it very clear that I would rather HE than send my kids to his school. And I am NOT the HE type!

When our local secondary became an academy, there was massive local opposition- which was ignored. Local parents and politicians wanted the running of the school to be placed in the hands of a local consortium, but the council insisted on it being given to a large international religious sect. It is well known that one of the councillors had close affiliations to the afore-mentioned sect. I am not saying that this normally happens, merely that the academy set-up meant that it could happen.

Parents do try to vote with their feet- I have been told that there is not a single child in the current Year 6 of the same catchment primary school who has got the academdy as his first choice. The problem is that since the school became an academy all the other local schools have become massively oversubscribed and you simply can't get in if you are not in catchment.

Voting with your feet is no good if the other schools won't have you.

I hope this is not indicative of how the academy scheme usually works.

Both the Tiffin Schools are beconing academies.

One of our local primaries became an academy on the 1st September.

From what I gather from the parent I spoke to, there wasn't a great deal of consultation, they weren't given the pros and cons; just the pros.

Though it was the same when the two secondary schools in town federated. The decision was made before the first consultation. But they can at least say they went through due process.

Sorry, I see loads of typos there - mixture of bad iPad typing and autocorrect!

My DD1s school becomes an academy as of 1 January. There wasn't a proper consultation, they asked for emails if you had any issues I sent them a long one explaining why I thought it was a bad idea and in particular pointing to the national association of grammar schools' advice for grammars not to make the change. My email was comoketely ignored, they later sent round a communication saying there had been no opposition and it was happening. this week, we all got an email telling us that as from 1 Jan the assisted purchase scheme for musical instruments is dead for us. Even though they will get a slush fund to compensate for the VAT anomalies of turning into an academy they aren't going to be using it to help parents purchase musical instruments (ie they aren't going to use it for what it is actually for, since the loss of the assisted our chase scheme is ine of the anomalies the slush fund is supposed to correct). I'm furious - I wasn't planning on buying a new instrument for my daughter this year but I was planning on buying one next year. But its not just that - its the message it sends. The first thing the school is doing is using its academy status independence to subvert proper government policy which promotes the arts. I bet it wont be disadvantaging sport in any way. :(

Why do you say the new academies will have fewer parent governors? There is nothing that says they have to. They are required to have a minimum of 2 parent governors but no maximum is laid down. It is perfectly possible for an academy to have more parent governors than it had before converting to academy status. Indeed, it can have the whole lot as parent governors if it wants.

The evidence of the existing academies is that many (most?) have improved academic standards and are now producing significantly better results than they were as LA schools. Don't get me wrong - I'm not saying everything in the garden is rosy. There are certainly some concerns. My personal stance on this policy is one of wait and see. It looks interesting and I hope it delivers what the government thinks it will in terms of improved education, particularly for the disadvantaged (and I note that this was Tony Blair's policy originally for the same reasons), but I want to see how it works out in practise. I do, however, think it is important to correct some of the misconceptions that crop up here from time to time.

I would agree that an important aspect of the academy/free schools policy is that we need to get to the point where parents can vote with their feet so that schools have to deliver what parents want. That doesn't mean all schools will be the same - different parents want different things. But I would like to see real parental choice.

OP - if you want more information from the government's point of view, there is a set of FAQs on the Department of Education's websitehere.

Most LEA schools self insure - ie they do not pay for insurance on the basis that they are so huge they can cover most things
an academy would be daft to do that
cost will be upwards of £50k a year for a secondary

my big bugbear with academies is that they are unaccountable
fewer parent governors
no lea control
and yet all the money comes from the parents taxes
but unlike a feepaying, parents cannot usually vote with their feet

DD's school were offered it over the summer and the governors voted decisively not to, as did all the other schools around here.... go figure