Does anyone teach at or have dcs go to a school with Academy status?

Cory that is so sad.

I am lucky that my new school does not have to do that kind of thing northernrefugee as it made me feel very uncomfortable.

Usually when a school makes a miraculous leap up the league tables if you scratch the surface there will be Btechs and NVQs galore

Being part of the "diversity" programme, they're bound to have a very wide variation.

I've heard about good ones. The religious sponsors bother me a lot though.

twinset, I think what you said about the discussion of b-tecs and NVQ's as a way of boosting qualifications on paper is interesting.
It's a symptom of target driven industry...

A friends dc was more or less forced to do city and guilds hair and beauty, when actually she wanted to do art and design and drama, but she was more likely to get good grades in h and b.

Obviously some children are suited to a less academic structure, but having taught on some nvq courses (a while ago) I agree that they don't fill the gap they should. They certainly give the impression that if the box is ticked that a module is complete, it's more important than the content and drive of the course.

And linking that with cory's point about children losing enthusiasm and motivation, the whole acdemy thing looks like a huge exercise is empty qualifications which look good on paper.

It depends on who runs the academy. Academy status in itself is just a name.

Our local and very good secondary was merged with another secondary, given academy status and given to a religious group to run last year.

It has been a complete disaster. There have been riots, teachers not turning up for lessons, no clear lesson plans, 19 staff including the head resigned within the course of a week, Ofsted have been sent in. It took about a month of new academy status for the whole school to descend into chaos.

Dd thankfully got into an out-of-catchment school because she is a wheelchair user and the new school had no information about how they were going to help her access the curriculum in a non-accessible school.

The last time she asked a friend in the other school how things were going he said: 'well, it's a bit better, the teachers are turning up now, but I still can't hear what they're saying.'

I met the Mum of one of dd's friends the otherday, and she was almost in tears when she told me how her dd had completely lost her motivation, she is not learning anything, she never has any homework because she gets through all the work in class. I remember this girl from Yr 6 as one of the most intelligent, bubbly, interested girls you could meet, someone you would swear would get top GCSE results. It's taken them less than a year to destroy all that.

I then went and checked the Ofsted reports for the two schools the same organisation already had up and running before us: one seems to be good, the other reports definite problems with the quality of the teaching.

The irony is, that this organisation claims to specialise in failing schools, and ours was a perfectly useful school that only failed when they took it over.

Very true itchy beyond being approached about a job via email I have never spoken to anyone who work in an academy which is why I found it so hard to make an informed choice.

It is hard getting a neutral viewpoint, the school I taught at previously was more than likely to become an academy and when I was making the decision to stay or leave I tried to get neutral information and just couldnt.

I would be wary of who runs the academy, lots have religious affiliations and I would want to look carefully at their science and RE curriculums.

As a teacher I would have no issue over teachers re applying for jobs as it would weed out the chaff. Peformance related is another issue as it is difficult to measure but if it could be used to get rid of teachers who are not working hard or fail to get results that is not a bad things. I refuse to even apply for my PR pay as I think my time should be spent being a good teacher not filling in forms to get a pay rise.

Acadamies to spend a lot of money to recruit the right kind of staff. I was appraoched about running a department in an academy and would have earnt almost double what a private school offered to pay me.

I do know there is evidence that acadamies can have a negative effect on other schools, from a selfish but inderstandable point of view it therefore may be better to have your child in an academy than a local school being hit negatively by one.

I know when an academy was being discussed in my old school it was going to have a real emphasis on vocational qualifications, lots of NVQs and BTECS which are often used to falsely boost grades and league table places.

Sorry I cannot be more help but will watch with interest.
Sorry I cannot be more help, but I will watch wit interest.