To not really understand academies and what effects tomorrow's budget will have?

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It is suspected that the budget will announce all schools are to become academies..

Can someone explain in very basic terms

1. What is an academy?
2. What are the pros/cons?
3. What is stealth privatisation?
4. Do they really use 'teachers' with no qualifications?
5. What will this mean to parents and children?

Thanks

There’s a very interesting piece by Michael Rosen about the land issue here: michaelrosenblog.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/gove-nicked-our-schools-and-handed-them.html?m=1

Yes I read that. Michael Gove is an utter shitbag

cost more' will be managed out. Where will they end up if all schools are academies and don't want them? there's lots of statistics showing the rates of expulsion is so much higher In academies, particularly in the first few years of running

This is truly terrifying .
The Tories haven't won the argument on academies- so they're going to impose them.
They are stealing from the public what we used to own. Just like with the NHS and PFI etc
Currently schools are owned by the public and entirely under our jurisdiction.
The government want to hand them, and all their land / assets etc over to private firms to be run for profit and without accountability or obligation to the public.
They won't come back under our control for 125 years when the leases come up for negotiation.
Insanity.
Local authorities are going to be forced to hand them over.
We all loose.
Especially our children, and our grandchildren

There's another thread here where this is currently being discussed in some detail.

Indeed children who cost more will be managed out. We're seeing this happening, ours is highly selective.

We're in a rural area with a very well regarded, over subscribed secondary school. The only one in a 20 mile radius. They've just changed their admissions policy to give priority to pupils from primary schools within their MAT a number of which are located far closer to the alternative secondary schools. My DCs school is less than a mile from the local secondary in the small town we live in but is not part of the MAT. it's likely they'll be sent to the next nearest school 11 miles away. Bonkers.

At the very least, all of us who work pay taxes as part of our salaries. The taxes pay for the police, the streetlights, the hospitals, etc etc etc. And schools.

Oh no... Our taxes won't pay for schools any more.

Do you think we'll pay LESS tax when we're not paying for education? And will anyone tell us where the 'education' part of our taxes are going?

I can guess the answers.

How is there potential for loads of profit if the school budgets are so tight at the moment - eg, the PTA funding textbooks etc. Are the local authorities that bad at managing the budgets that a private firm can waltz in and make a profit?

When there is more funding per child it is easy. Also you can cut loads of things like qualified teachers, you may not be able to sack them all but you can replace them when they retire with unqualified teachers or put in your own pay scale.

I am not happy all schools are to become academy's.

Dds primary became an academy. In two years it went from being a great school to an awful oneZ the head teacher became obsessed with maintaining their outstanding status at any cost. My dd was dragged to the floor by her hair and they refused to admit there was any bullying. We removed her.

However she bows goes to a secondary academy which is fantastic. It's by far the best school in the area, even compared with the private schools we have. It's run very well and the kids do come first. All the teachers are qualified. They have a ridiculous amount of support staff. Which makes the place run well.

It's part of a trust and was the first academy of the trust.

My issue is that as much as it can be a good thing, it can also be a bad thing. When it's shit there is little any parents can do.

Academy's give a lot of power to the head. Once a school is a academy if the head does not like you for what ever sma the reason they can easily get rid of you.
They do not need to follow teacher to pupils ratios, meaning the head can reduce or increase class sizes.

Can I ask how teachers feel about it? At the moment teachers seem so constrained by targets and standards. Is this a positive or a negative move?

No stance either way here - genuinely curious

Has there been a single comment which is positive about academies, does any one outside the government and the companies that profit from favour the process?

Just to give a slightly different slant. My dc attend a free school and not having to stick to a rigid curriculum has been a positive thing for them and the teachers seem less stressed and there is more fun and creativity. They do just have qualified teachers and do consult but are not constrained by the National curriculum. Does make you wonder why they went to all the fuss of instigating a new NC if in 6yrs no one will need to stick to it.

Hazel, I said on the other thread I don't think it will make much difference in practice to be honest.

shouldwestay because at the end of schooling all children take the same exams when gvt talk about "freedom to not follow the national curriculum" they don't mean that primary schools won't have to do endless grammar or that secondary GCSE maths students won't have to learn quadratic equations they mean that the school won't have to follow the rules about what subjects all students must study. This means that curriculums will be narrowed.

I am a governor at a converter secondary academy which my DC attend. I'm not entering the wider political debate about the latest proposals but must say that I don't recognise much of what is said here about academies.

We follow the national curriculum and employ excellent teachers. We co-operate with our local authority and other schools. We don't employ a chief executive, just a fabulous headteacher.

It's been a very positive experience for us and for my DC

Hazel, our local authority currently has very few academy schools but this is changing. I worry about who will provide alternative provision, who teach the children who are severally school phobia, have sever emotional and behaviour problems, the children who are pregnant and have very young children who are are currently supported by small expensive, alternative provison. There is a school with falling numbers in our lea and as a result they are financially struggling. There catchment is geographically limited and from a socially deprived area, the lea is supplementing the funding of this school because they think that if they close this school the children on that estate won't bother to travel to another school and therefore won't access education.

Who will provide support to schools about HR or improving standards, it will have to be bought in and therefore be a lot more expensive and less easily available. In the past our school has informally supported another who had a negative Ofsted and helped the school turn themselves around. This very much informally, positive support. The government will have no way of making topics or subjects compulsory. Now we know despite many parlimatry reports and MPs calling for PSche to be compulsory why they did not make it compulsory.

If English school don't follow The national curriculum then the national curriculum won't be updated. I suppose the positive is we could then ignore Gove's ridiculous history curriculum.

Experience has shown that academies tend to be ruthless about getting rid of children with SEN and other difficulties. As things stand currently, the local authority has the duty to arrange alternative placements for them and to ensure that there is continuity of support. If every school is an academy they won't be able to do that. Yet again, this government proposes to abandon the most vulnerable people in society.

The children who get expelled mostly end up in the PRU's ( pupil referral unit) - they are excellent and still local authority run. They really know how to manage the children in a way that academies don't.

There are still some secondary schools that make a terrible job of accommodating children with extra needs - we see that all
the time on Mumsnet.

This is a political point the Tories have always believed - don't have children who can't or won't learn in mainstream school - they do not believe in inclusion.

Inclusion is expensive as every school is statutorily obliged to do it.

I believe completely in inclusion but many people don't.

sometimes charities, sometimes company's, sometimes businesses and sometimes trusts

No, they are always run by an academy trust which is a charity. A business cannot own an academy.

Laurie- that was not my SEN child's experience of a PRU!

I'm involved with a sixth-form college - one of the top ten in the country - that's being edged towards becoming an academy. We've had lots of meetings and consultations about it. The info I'm reading here doesn't tie in with the info that we've had at all.

The benefits for sixth-form colleges far outweigh the consequences (according to our principal). The whole college is student-led and would not risk its reputation. This has been on the agenda for a long time - mainly because of out VAT status. Not being VAT exempt has meant compulsory redundancies for quite a few members of staff over the past three years and becoming an academy would change that.

I think if the schools/colleges in question have a good reputation, they'll do everything to save that, academy or not. If the schools aren't doing so well, maybe a shake-up is needed? Students can benefit from industry professionals teaching them too - they wouldn't just let anyone walk in and teach a class, surely? We've already been assured that academy or not, a traditional teaching qualification will be required. Perhaps they'll do it like FE colleges always have and allow people to teach whilst studying towards a teaching qualification - not ideal but it would mean that the methodology of teaching doesn't get lost.

The free schools that people are talking about are different to academies, aren't they? Most of our secondary schools here are already academies and they're as traditional (in terms of National Curriculum) as they come.

I was wondering about this. DD has CFS/ME. Technically the LA is responsible for providing funding for home tuition if she can't go into school but I think that is now her school's responsibility as it is an academy. The problem is that I know the school has funding issues (like all others). Not sure what happens then. Will DD then become a liability?

I doubt anything the Tories are doing with state education is a good thing for state education tbh.