Did Supply in a new Academy yesterday and feel sad

Talkinpeace2 I would second your conclusion that the real target is to diminish the role of LAs. Your observations about insurance cover for school buildings are similar to the research I have carried out regarding our small primary school converting to academy status. Whilst the cash uplift is much spoken/written about, for a small school to buy in (because we don't have the spare staff capacity/expert skills in house) the same support we get from our LA (admittedly we have a very successful LA) would eat up the cash uplift and some.

One key test for new academies will be when there is some form of 'disaster' - only then will it be clear if the SLT is up to sorting out the situation without the support of LA teams of people and if they have the relevant insurance cover and the insurance company acts swiftly.

prh
the trustees of the charity are indeed not remunerated - I'm a charity trustee for various things
BUT Charities employ executive directors and it is THOSE people that get VERY highly paid - particularly in Oasis

kez
you cannot compare domestic insurance with commercial
I base my numbers on knowing what small local small councils have to pay to insure their buildings for public use and its horrendous - lots of Parish Councils have their budgets online - read and weep

I sell them a pen. Kids can normally find 10p. And if you tell them they have to pay and you won't just give them one they often magically find a pen in their bag.

Or for bottom sets where pen forgetting takes up the first half of the lesson I hand out a plastic wallet with a pen, pencil and ruler in to each student, whether they need it or not. Makes it easier collecting them in when I don't need to remember who has what.

Or as I lend equipment I write their name on the board, and only cross it off at the end of the lesson when I get it back.

I stopped lending pens in my first year of teaching after I went through a whole box in a term.

Textbooks don't necessarily mean lazy teaching, but I have seen lots of "read and answer questions" lessons using textbooks. You'd struggle to get an outstanding on new Ofsted criteria with textbooks. If they are used well, group work, active learning etc then fine.

I can't afford them. I get £1500 a year to buy all paper, pens, sugar paper, exercise books, resources, photocopying etc. I do very little photocopying, I can't afford it.

But I get through hundreds of pens- what do you do when they come without pens? You have to supply them.

northcountrygirl - To add to other comments, they cannot breach the infant class size limit. There are no limits on class sizes in any other stage of school regardless of whether it is an academy or a community school.

choccyp1g - They can increase the number of classes and have smaller classes if they wish, provided they can afford it. If they refuse to increase the number of classes when the LA tells them to the matter is referred to the Schools Adjudicator. An academy is in a stronger position than a community school (many of whom have been forced to increase the number of classes against their wishes) but it is still possible the Adjudicator will rule that they need to add additional classes.

Talkinpeace2 - They are charitable trusts (which are usually constituted as companies limited by guarantee). The board members are the trustees of the charity and are not remunerated at all.

Or increase the number of classes?

Or refuse to increase the number of classes when the LEA tell them to?

They cannot become academically selective. Former state grammar schools can remain selective though if they convert.

Free schools cannot be academically selective, and independent schools which convert have to drop selection.

I'm not sure about class size.

There seems to be some expertise on this thread so, am I right in thinking that Academies can do pretty much what they want?

I know they can change the school holiday, teachers pay scale and also decide on what extra resource they want to buy in. But what about other bigger issues? Could they (for example) decide to become selective? Or increase class size?

I am perfectly happy to accept school buildings are at greater risk, so the figure should be somewhat higher, but my home buildings (if extrapolated up from 400k cover to 8m cover) would be £4000 a year.

So it costs £800,000 for £8m of building insurance cover for a school?

So at some point the DFE is going to be lumbered with a massive insurance bill either to pay insurers to insure new academies (or they'll go bust) or to insure private schools who already fork out for private insurance?

Kez
its either that or somebody in the insurance industry will ....
LEAs were able to argue that it was in common with all other council assets and keeping council tax down.
Academies are private companies
and the sums involved are equivalent to hundreds and hundreds of teachers
when I emailed the Dfes about it just after the election the answer I basically got was

So, you are saying at some point, a private (fee paying?) school will argue for insurance cover to be paid for?

I'm still confused how this is a fiddle? It's not even happened yet.

Kez100
I'm an ex Council Auditor - this is one of my pet subjects !

Local Councils do not tend to inure their fixed assets with an insurance company.
They tend to 'self insure' on the basis that what they would pay in premiums would dwarf what they would have to pay out in major repairs each year.
So, to rebuild half a secondary school costs around £4,000,000
BUT
to insure said secondary school will cost around £800,000 PER YEAR every year, extracted from the education budget into the profits of insurers.

SO for 2011/12 (and I think 2012/13) the DFes has agreed to underwrite the insurance cover of all conversion academies on the basis they do not have the economies of scale
BUT
its only a matter of time till a private school (sadly quite rightly) demands parity one way or the other

its a total fiddle based on the fact that the policy twonks at Whitehall had NO IDEA how state schools actually operate, never having darkened the doors of one !!!

Fiddle the insurance premiums through the LEA? What do you mean?

Noble- it pisses me off too. Politically, I come from a very different angle. Resource a school properly, reduce admin burden, allow SLT to do what they are good at - teaching, not business matters. Allow teachers to do what they are good at and stop messing with initiatives and constant exam changes. Ofsted need to work with schools to draw together everyones expertise not as a scary us versus you inspectorate (now lets add to the suspense and make it no notice and try and catch you out regime). Such a waste of resources when they could come in and help. I could go on forever (probably).

However, many schools needed to convert to survive and others to maintain the status quo. If the Academy decision to convert was made as a political decision some schools would have been throwing themselves to the wolves.

at DCs school the Academy bonus was £350,000 for one year
which against a budget of over £5,000,000 every year
and the fact that they have had to fiddle the insurance premiums through the dfes
AND the £80,000 per year specialisation money has stopped
makes me realise that its ALL about weakening LEAs
and burger all to do with improving education

Bethnella, some children in bottom set (all?) are likely to have learning issues which make learning and recalling times tables rather harder than it is for the rest of us.

Kez, I wish more people were aware of the dire budget situations in schools. The amount of people on here moaning about how their local school has become an academy, like it had any choice! No one wanted my school to become an academy, yet, a year after our head said that they had no intention of becoming an academy, there we were.

When you said that the academy money could be spent on more teachers and improved facilities, it sounded like we were diving into piles of extra cash like Scrooge McDuck! Instead we are struggling to keep our heads above water. And when provision and results go downhill as they undoubtedly will because we have fewer and more overworked teachers and TAs, people will say 'god, I thought academies were supposed to be better than comps, what are they doing?' And people will blame the school for being crap instead of placing the blame squarely where it belongs with the government.

The whole thing really pisses me off.

The SOS can certainly get involved if he wants to - he/she is allowed to be a member or director (not sure which)

Can't believe Y9's (bottom or not/academy or not) don't know times tables! Some of my Y2's know up to 7's and I would be devestated if my Y6 dd didn't know hers!!! BTW she will be going to local comp and we live on a council estate! No excuse!

Kez100
indeed but Ofsted DO NOT have enforcement powers.
I've spoken to them at length about this because of Cory's catchment school which is linked to mine.
Ofsted can put the school in special measures and/or give it notice to improve
but it CANNOT make them do anything
and in the case of Cory's local school, Oasis have just stuck their heads in the sand and there is NOTHING the LEA or the council can do
and the Dfes has just 'asked' them to deal
hence the fact that the huge management salaries have come to light

I agree leadership quality is very important with Academies.

They are still under OFSTED!

Noble- my list wasn't meant to be exhaustive. I do find the budget cut situation awful and wrong but that is beyond schools control. By being an Academy there has been, I suspect, less redundancies etc than would have been the case if they had stated LEA. So, however bad, it's still better than it would have been.