to wonder what benefits there are for turning schools into academies

[PosieParker]

as Michael Gove seemingly wants to. A friend of a friend said in his office there's a chart with a list of all schools he wants as academies this year!!!

The benefit is the govn can privatise the education system and further degrade the teaching profession by not requiring qualified teachers to work at said academies.

Gove is an evil man.

They can screw over their staff with respect to pay and conditions.

Is is just cost? Well stupid question I guess. But when he sits with his team and tells them what they're going to do to schools how is he disguising it?

Autonomy for schools? Therefore more power and better standards? (even if it's bullshit)

There steamy benefits, such as additional funding and the power to make more decisions 'in house'. However it does also provide some instability for staff. Dd attends an academy, and it was clear from the start they would not rip the piss out of the staff. The staff ( a few are friends and mum works there) are very happy st the school. Bit not all schools would choose to be fair.

As for the 'friend of a friend' comment about Gove, sorry but I don't believe it. What a silly source to quote.

There are many benefits. Not steamy ones, unfortunately. :)

DD's school has become and academy and the LA staff are in despair.

They are suddenly accountable to nobody and can treat children with SEN like S**T and nobody can do a thing about it. Clearly it isn't just children with SEN who will suffer but they are first in the firing line at DD's school.

I worry for the future of our children's education when we are washing our hands of the responsibility for the education of so many children.

mutny. No need to be so patronising. Perhaps the source is a little more reliable but I cannot name it. True or not it certainly doesn't seem out of this world.

I am not being patronising. But we could all say 'a friend of a friend' to start a discussion or add a bit sensationalism to a thread. I choose not to believe it.

Its like the benefit bashing threads that start with 'my cousins, aunts, sons, father has a flat screen, a goat and 10 holidays a year and never works'.

It's the most amazing centralisation of State control. These schools now all come under direct control of the SoS. This one is unlikely to intervene much, but the way the levers of control have been amassed into one pair of hands is an absolute dream should a more totalitarian party (such as New Labour proved to be) come to power.

Yes yes we could, but I'm not posting to parliament, just a few people near a PC on a Friday morning.

www.standard.co.uk/news/education/michael-gove-in-bid-to-speed-up-school-takeovers-after-academy-battle-8222461.html?origin=internalSearch

Hope this link works because it shows Gove's intentions to remove employment regulation for schools.

Less responsibility for central government!

Much smaller classes in our case which has been a good thing - just to balance the debate out a bit

Academy status is something our primary is looking at at the moment.

The main bonus for them, is that it gets our utterly useless, staffed by wankers, LEA out of the equation.

It's no a done deal, parents, staff, kids would all get a say, the head isn't proposing railroading it through, but it's being looked at

One primary on our town has become an academy, and in this case neither staff nor parents got a say, let alone kids, locals, other stake-holders.
There were lots of angry/upset letters in the local paper so the School Govenors were forced to reply. It seems that the change was forced on them and there was nothing they could do. (probably because recent Ofsted history is bad but slowly improving).

Whatever the pros and cons, I do wish it couldn't be imposed from above - Surely school staff, governors, parents etc know something more about what's best for their school than a SoS who's never seen it?

If a school becomes an academy, who owns the school land? I've heard some interesting allegations about schools' land deeds passing into private ownership. Anyone know the facts about that?

I can imagine that is true thebigj seeing as people nest in academies.

The property is passed to the academy chain for so long as the school remains in the chain - they are responsible for its upkeep, tax, rates etc.

Yes yes we could, but I'm not posting to parliament, just a few people near a PC on a Friday morning.

But you using a source as fact, do you usually do that when having a conversation? Just add some random 'fact' to great sensationalism?

Do you work for the DM?

mutny. I'm not really sure why you're being like this so I am going to ignore you as you're bothering me.

Fair enough. I fail to see how questioning 'facts' is bothersome.
Personally I would expect my 'facts' to questioned. But there you go.

My sons go to an Academy, fortunately it's a very good one and seems to be thriving even more than when it was a standard primary. I've heard some awful things about other academies though and I am very aware that we appear to be in a lucky minority with how well ours is run.

Two things: One the absence or inclusion of a chart in his office is neither here nor there, I think his intentions are well known.

As far as I can see, it means they are no longer contributing their 'share' to all the facilities that the LA have previously provided, so they will not be able to survive, so there will be no support for schools when they do need it.

Bit like some of us choosing to opt out of paying tax, because currently we don't need the education system or health service or things like the probation service or the courts that we think we have nothing to do with, but, if they weren't there, I think we'd all notice a difference.

I think the difference will be noticeable in 5 - 10 years time tbh ( thank God ds will be out of education by then )