To be worried about school turning in to academy?

[OneBigHeadache]

My ds has just finished Y2 at infant school. The junior school he will be going to in September is the sister school. When I applied for the school the ofsted rating was outstanding. However, last December they had their ofsted visit and it was deemed inadequate. We have now been informed (yesterday!) that it is being forced to become an academy. It is being 'sponsored' by another academy school.

I am really worried. From what I understand, academies don't answer to the local authority. My son has SN and we have worked so hard to get him where he is now. With the help of the lea. I guess I'm just panicking a bit that the new owners of the school will be a law unto themselves and he won't get the help he needs.

Does anyone have any experience of forced academy schools? Please tell me IABU and it's all going to be just fine!

Agree with tobysmum. See dashboard.ofsted.gov.uk/dash.php?urn=102962.

Data dashboard is a very useful picture of a school - it summarises its progress over last 3 years and compares with other schools.

You can't avoid academies. Some good schools will convert by choice, poor schools will be forced to convert and (it seems) some good schools will be forced by a rigged OFSTED report.

Do you know which academy school is sponsoring it?

chillychicken Cheam Park Farm Junior Academy. Can't find much info about them but I believe they are a conversion academy by choice. Maybe a good thing? I don't really know how it all works.

But the thing is Tiggy the figures for making 2 sub levels of progress aren't that bad.

Ah ok. I don't know that school. There's an academy group of 4 schools in Surrey and if it had been that group I could have got some more info for you.

Tiggy that is mathematically impossible, there are 4 key stages (5 is sixth form) and only 10 levels so not all children can make 3 levels difference per key stage without slowing down at some point.

I agree the figures aren't amazing but I have seen much, much worse. I expected much worse having read the report.

and of course there may be tutoring going on, which would affect figures.

I've had experiences of two academies. The academy by choice was a foul place come the end. A business run by people who only seemed to care about the business end rather than the school end of things. The academy as part of a chain is much better. Anecdotal I know, but please don't automatically assume that all sponsored academies are horrid. The second school I mentioned has an across the board good rating, it has small class sizes and it tries really hard to be inclusive with SEN and EFL students.

Before I moved my son who has special needs was at a primary which was an academy and he got fantastic support. I wouldn't worry about that at all

You are right to be concerned, but more about the fact that a school which was deemed Outstanding has become Inadequate in a relatively short space of time; it says far more about the Ofsted system than the school's actual performance.

Having read Tiggytape's analysis of the report, I would still be suspicious; it sounds like manipulation of targets, accusations of 'coasting'; and a poor record of working with the LA is used as a reason for removing it completely from LA support. Accusations of children failing to make the progress they should is very subjective, as the data on which these assumptions are based is extremely unreliable.

Use your own judgement about the school and if you are feel happy with it let your son go there, but be extremely vigilant about the provision for his special needs; query the senior management and the Academy providers about their plans, qualifications and achievements, and keep doing so. In my (limited) experience of Academies they maintain successful schools well, but show little evidence of improving so-called failing schools.

Turning a school into an Academy is not a guarantee of improvement; I do think many of our schoolchildren are failing to achieve but this has far more to do with their complacent attitude to learning than is currently acknowledged, i.e. they simply don't work hard enough, and schools have few sanctions to make them do so.

But even so Tiggy the figures arent anywhere near as bad as the report reads is all I am saying I expected to see 50%s (when dd's school went into sm last year I looked at figures for quite a lot and many are shockingly bad). There are lots and lots of schools that aren't in sm with much worse. There have clearly been lots of issues over several years with declining results, which have recently improved a bit again. Because it was outstanding it was left and obviously its too much for the Head to sort alone.

Good old OFSTED ensuring high standards .

There's some very interesting thoughts here and I appreciate everyone's input. Certainly gives me a lot of info to look in to!

Anyone who has read the ofsted report, is the school not in special measures? I was under the impression it was. It's all a bit confusing!

Yes it is in special measures. There are two types of inadequate (4) grading. If management gets a 4 it is SM but a 4 for something else and 3+ for management is serious weakness. Not that many schools get graded 4/ inadequate without going into SM as by definition getting 4s is the fault of management.

I accept that the actual results are alive national average, but the data dashboard shows that even in its strongest subject the school is only in the top 40% of similar schools and top 20% of all schools.

The school has had a turbulent history in the lead up to inspection: new head, 50% of teachers leaving, governors leaving/being replaced.

The new head has engaged with the LA but doesn't have support of a strong leadership team and isn't being held to account by the GB.

They aren't doing well by their high achieving pupils or their lower achieving pupils. They don't even seem to know where their money is going or if it is being used effectively.

That is a good summary lougle. Personally I would be worried by the fact that a sponsor isn't in place so no idea what is coming or when to start sorting it out. The big issue is that these days the LA dont have resources to support schools (unless our LA was particularly useless which may well be the case), so until all is in place there is a real feeling of limbo.

The school have arranged a meeting tomorrow at 9am, lucky it's so early as we're off on holiday at midday. So should have some answers about the sponsor tomorrow!

Fingers crossed that you get good news

Thanks toby me too!

That's really helpful tiggy thanks! So does that mean the school wouldn't become an academy, you reckon? Or that it will but things shouldn't change much? All purely guesswork at the moment, I suppose.

Lovely, isn't it, when I'm getting more info from MNetters than the school itself!

If you go here you can see the school started to be aware of issues in 2013.