Academy trust gives up - what does the future hold?

Fresh8008 I agree with you. But it will only "get sorted" if a high quality trust steps in, and (non agenda-driven) trusts will only step up to that challenge if they know they will be properly funded. The gvt has created a financial rod for its own back with the academy model so now it needs to make it work in a climate where experienced education professionals are walking away and/or complaining vociferously about the funding crisis.

Thanks Prh, you are precise and correct with language as always. However, the point I was making to Castiron still stands - the funding model for free schools and academies is very different to that of voluntary aided schools, which historically had much more financial input from the church. If a former LA-run failed academy is handed over to a church-led academy trust, the church does not "own" the building or fund the school. If the gvt procures a building for a church-led free school, the church does not "own" the building. The new and expanding breed of church schools is being funded by the Government

The Church owns a lot less than many people on MN think

It is usually a foundation or a trust rather than the church itself. But for the majority of VA and VC schools the land and buildings are owned by a foundation or trust.

It doesn't own the buildings for its free schools

That, as an absolute statement, is not correct. Some free schools own their buildings. Others lease them, either from an LA for a peppercorn rent or on a normal commercial lease. There are other options but those are the most common ones. It would be more accurate to say that the churches don't own the buildings for all their free schools.

Having lived in an LA that was 'failing' for decades the idea that they provided services for for free is quite strange. Every time I saw figures for maintenance, support or anything, the LA would charge the school 3* what it could be purchased for in the private sector. And because of contractual obligations schools had to go through the LA.

So I like the idea of MATs and when I see a few failing I like to think they will get sorted unlike failing LAs. It does seem like progress.

The link does not in any way support your suggestion that the government is planning to hand all schools over to the church

Sorry if it was a bit subtle. The OP asked what the future holds. When governments rely on charity to run schools it tends to be charities with an agenda, whether that be some sort of "innovative/kooky" educational model or the promotion of a pet subject, frequently religion.

The link represented the direction of travel for free schools in particular. There are also plenty examples of converter academies being handed over to the church.

They certainly aren't going to hand them over to the local authority, that's for sure.

All the while the church owns the buildings (and in some cases the land) where education takes place

It doesn't own the buildings for its free schools (aka new academies) which is why many people think they should have less influence over them than they do with VA schools.

Anyway, that's a digression.

castiron
The Church owns a lot less than many people on MN think

The link does not in any way support your suggestion that the government is planning to hand all schools over to the church.

abolition of religious ...... selection

Would the church (CofE and Catholic in particular) be required to hand over their assets to the state? Because I can't see that happening.

All the while the church owns the buildings (and in some cases the land) where education takes place, they have to be given a say in how it is delivered. Remove their stake in the delivery, and the church could, quite reasonably, IMO, withdraw the use of their assets for state education purposes.

In some areas, that would result in the loss of half the primary provision. Who picks up the bill for buying/building all those new schools?

At least academy trusts can vote with their feet and throw in the towel, making a fuss about poor government funding. Local Authorities just had to carry on regardless (or at least they did as a structure - the individuals working within the structure still scarpered when things worked out badly).

If more academy trusts end up in the same position, the Government will have no choice but to increase funding for schools which, after all, is what people have been clamouring for. (Either that or they will just hand them all over to the church ... oh, wait, they're planning to do that anyway).

Its in ITV news tonight

Passed was grade 4 or above.
However they've been telling prospective parents about their 80% A-C pass rate for years and about how they are above NA.
Looking over past few years it seems like it was the quick rise after converter and has dwindled slowly since.
It's the pupils I feel sorry for. About 70 students will need to retake at college as well as doing courses from what I understand of new retake rules. It make me wonder how colleges will cope and the effect on them?

Gnome,

Do all children in your town attend the school - ie is the intake representative of the town?

I am not saying that all 'bad' schools - or Ofsted RI / SM schools - serve areas of deprivation (or more precisely, have deprived intakes - an area of the town i live in seems hugely affluent - huge houses line the principal streets - but those children attend private schools / grammars and the local secondary school's intake is very socioeconomically mixed indeed, with large numbers drawn from the relatively 'invisible' poor estates)

Just that, statistically, you are more likely to get Good / Oustanding if you have amongst the lowest % PP / SEN nationally, and less likely if those percentages are amongst the highest in the country. The reasons are fairly obvious, but obviously at a school by school level, the statistical correlation may not hold up.

This year 55% of pupils passed maths gcse.
define "passed"

I'm finding it very interesting reading about single converters because it's so true of 2 local academies.

1. affluent area - my old school which was a GM state. Remained as outstanding throughout. Few Sen and fewer FSM/PP. like to use managed moves
2. failing state school. New HT made paper for record number of exclusions. Academy converter. Spike in results despite it being proud of having only 3 lsa's. HT left and made papers again for unpopularity in new school and forced to resign left due to poor health after 8 months. Deputy ht took over. This year 55% of pupils passed maths gcse.

Dakota its interesting what you say about staff feeling disempowered. My ds attended an academy converter (who's deputy HT became acting HT when he started).
The one thing I said I could feel from the is that the staff were not to form any relationship with parents and were to consider themselves the experts of our children and to see us as 'just the parents'.
Is impossible to get the best from pupils of the schools idea of working with parents is by keeping them at arms length.
Staff absence and sickness was higher than I've experienced at ds current secondary that's twice the size!

castiron
to pick up on your question of what do we propose

• a minimum size for LEAs (eg one CEO to 100 secondary schools)
• abolition of religious and academic selection (but retain parental choice as it works in pure comp areas)
• return to LEAs the ability to provide as man places are needed
• make all areas (LEA or LAC within it) have one central specialised PRU rather than dire spread out education
• properly fund SEN schooling with shared expertise

it CAN be done

Not all local authorities have the same model of providing support to schools. In my LA, schools buy in the services they want from the LA which has set up businesses to offer the services who stand and fall by their own success or otherwise. If they don't sell their services to the LA schools and the academies, they don't exist. It has greatly concentrated minds on providing high quality services the schools value.

Therefore our LA schools have the vast majority of funds delegated to them and governors/head decide what service packages they want to buy. The academies may buy the services too. It is not correct to assume that all LAs take 10-15%. They don't. There is a very mixed bag of service agreements and shopping baskets!

In a nutshell:
Trust grows and gets big
Trust pays senior staff a small fortune for doing very little
Trust fails to improve schools
(Probably) senior staff get gardening leave and a package to resign
Trust folds
Chaos insues looking for a new chain sponsor in the hope they will be better tjan the last one.

Meanwhile front line staff and students get dumped on. More new management. More new rules. Probably a new uniform. Then a load of exclusions. Then throw loads of resources at y11 to get a results spike (and fail to realise a poor ks3 causes results problems).

There was a great article on school improvement rates whej schools get taken over. I think it's a 2 year spike followed by a drop.

I'm anti academies as a political entity. I think a lot of the big chains have their fingers in lots of pies and there's too much money wasted at the top. But i have to admit, smaller local MATs that act like old style federations re alright.

The thing is, good schools serving relatively affluent areas probably paid more into the LA pot than they got out. Many of those have become standalone converter academies, being Ofsted Good / Outstanding at the point the Government was giving significant financial incentives to them to convert. They remain, probably, better off as academies because their expenditure on e.g. SEN support, support for the most deprived and most disruptive pupils etc is lower than their LA payment.

OTOH, there were many schools serving difficult communities, or who found themselves in difficulties, who got more out of the LAS pot than they paid in. Schools with 60%+ FSM, schools with 40% + SEN, schools dealing with children from extremely deprived households or very large numbers of refugees etc. These have become 'forced' academies - partly because there is a statistical correlation between having high %Pupil premium and having a poor Ofsted, and vice versa (I have sorted schools in England by %Pupil Premium, and was actually horrified by the fact that the first 4 pages, all very low PP, were almost all Ofsted Outstanding, and that the last few pages, all with very high %PP, were - with the exception of some Catholic schools and a few in Inner London where the spending per pupil is HUGE - all SM or RI)

So in moving from LAs - who were essentially redistributing cash from the schools with the best intake to those with the worst - to academies, the 'easy' schools do better, cash wise, and the 'hard' schools, who used to get lots of LA help, now have to pay much more for it. Yes, the latter do get more more PP and SEN money BUT it still doesn't help in combatting the deprivation and difficulties that face many in the communities they serve.

Thanks noblegiraffe so LAs charge a lot more but provide some services. MATS are cheaper but dont provide services for free. How do we actually determine which system channels most money (including services) into a school? 10-15% sounds a lot more than 4.5% even when you factor in some extras.

I just read a letter in the TES about that, Fresh.

It said Lord Harris defended the CEO of Harris academies being paid £420,000 per year (not much less than that university Vice Chancellor who is being slated in the news for being paid a ridiculous amount) because the LEA would have taken 10-15% of school budgets while the Harris Federation only skims off 4.5%.

However, apparently he neglected to mention that LEAs used to provide many services for free that you now have to pay for.