How do academy schools work?

[Ohdosodoffdear]

I don't live in England so the hype around them has mostly passed me by, but I've gone down a worm hole now...how do they actually work?

Does the LA / Westminster just give a whack of money to a trust and let them crack on? Do they have governors? Who do you complain to if you're not happy? Are teachers treated well? Does the academy company look to make a profit from education, if so how? Do they get to be selective over the pupils they admit? So many questions! I've read up on them but I'm still not clear on it all.

Watching, as our secondary has just become an academy.

DD's school from primary to now 6th form has been in the same academy trust with several others. Each school is set up independent with head teacher and governers like any other state school and the academy trust is on top of it.

Are there issues, yes, when they included two more schools to the trust there was opposition as people feared the trust would stretch itself too thin. There were promises to mix resources, especially for the 6th forms but so far nothing has happened.

They have a similar complain procedure I have seen at other schools.
They are getting Ofsted in the same way as other schools.
They do get their own budget per pupil plus Pupil Premium for FSM children. And no, they don't make a profit, one of the schools is nearly falling down, money is plonked into too many repairs while still trying their best to deliver really good teaching.

I would say it has a similar turnaround of teaching staff I see at other schools my friend's DCs are going to. Similar issue attracting teachers for subjects like Food, D&T, Arts.

There were some attempts to change admission rules to priotrise children from the primary schools attached to the trust but it backfired as it had to go through public vote and our part of town was against it. The only excemptions is that teacher children are bumped up if a teacher is there for more than 2 years.

There is freedom in the curriculum but as the pupils are sitting the normal GCSEs and A-Levels they obviously have to teach the standard content.

One of the secondary schools attach is top of our borough's list just after the grammar schools.

Secondary: they employ a whole load of middle management and about 6 deputy heads per school, they have 1 head between 2-3 schools sometimes and an overall director. All the managers, heads and directors pay themselves a huge sum and the rest of the school muddles on with missing teaching staff (usually maths and science), and no money the same as local authority schools.
The teachers for our academy trust (15 schools) just had 5 days strike over 2 weeks to protest against the massive wages the managers give themselves.
They're a money making scam.

They absolutely are a law unto themselves.
I'm aware of one where for Christmas, the parents were asked to provide the pupils with stocking fillers of pens and pencils, as they where so short of money.
At the same time, the Executive principal was rocking up in a Maserati!