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

My old secondary school changed into an academy a few years ago and since then they've had three different head teachers (sorry, they call them principals now ), completely and quite ridiculously overhauled the uniform policies which outraged many parents and it's also now a failing school. They did knock the old buildings down and rebuilt it but I've seen photos of it inside and it looks like an open prison. It's horrible.

Like pretty much all of the policies you will hurt your head if you try to work out how it will benefit people.

If you ask instead "does this make profit for someone" then it's clear why they are doing it.

It's all about the money, and our DC will be paying for it with their education.

I don't have words for what I think of them.

We will likely end up in a situation where the local authority runs the pupil referral units amd special schools, where they have to deal with all the DC who are excluded from academies.

Exclusions will go up because it's in an academy's interests to get rid of pupils who mess up their stats.

thisproofseverything you may have been on the receiving end of a very effective sales campaign, and it may even be that all this things are true for your academy. But nationally, they are not obliged to employ teachers with qualifications. And they act as seperate businesses, so what happens in one has no bearing on what happens in another.

Can't believe the government are going to do this - hand over our children to private enterprise . Previous posters have asked 'what's in it for these companies ' the answer is simple - money.
These are not tins of beans they are our children , our countries future.
There are so many reasons why this shouldn't happen.

There's plenty of profit to be had in the land, buildings, playing fields of state schools etc, especially if it is prime development land. That is the main attraction for academy chains. Of course once it's gone it's gone.

A significant advantage for the government, which is probably osbourne's main motivator, is that it becomes much harder for unions to continue bargaining national terms and conditions for teachers. Instead, for new staff, heads will be able to negotiate their own terms, ignoring the national pay etc deal - a few teachers will gain in the short term, most will not. Not just pay, but all terms. And when the 'downturns' come for individual academy chains, as with any private sector organisation there will be more unilateral pay cuts and sackings. There is a link between this move and the timing of the trade union bill making it much harder to take strike action in protest at forced academisation. It is all a bit cynical and sinister. But we should be reassured since the conservatives are the party of hard working people.

I don't know much about academies, but I know that I don't like this government's wash-their-hands-of-any-responsibility attitude.

How can we protest? Is there a petition at least that someone can point me to? Can they actually force this through?!?!?

Don't forget lucrative deals for school ICT, equipments, advisors etc. That will be likely to go to someone involved in the academy trust or a close link.

This is another example of why nick clegg should be blamed for failing to explain AV properly to voters when he won the right to have a referendum on it. With AV, we would have a coalition, with enough rational liberal voices to be able to stop this kind of rubbish. Instead first past the post gives you policies like this one, 'supported' by a small minority, most of whom left school many moons ago.

Also, I don't remember seeing this in the conservative manifesto (?) so maybe the lords will eventually kill it.

Only last week the head of Ofsted warned about the large academy chains "very serious concerns" about poor value for public money, sitting on huge cash reserves and most seriously poor progress and attainment.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-35775458

What happens with Faith schools?

I'd better disclose that I am a cynic by nature. But I think that the general idea is that there will eventually be a number of large academy companies each running a large number of schools. Schools will still need to meet Ofsted requirements etc. However, the rules around how they run the school (including who is employed, employment terms etc) are more relaxed. Clearly the academy companies will only do this for a profit.

They want us to believe that the academy companies are so much better than the LEAs at doing this (since they are motivated by profit unlike LEAs) that they will be able to deliver a better service for less money. I get the point that companies running lots of schools can get economies of scale (but LEAs can do the same in respect of suppliers to local schools etc). What I'd like someone to explain to me is how they can make enough savings to get their profits without cutting corners in my DC education.

I'm not surprised to hear the stories about schools not replacing teachers and cutting the number of subjects on offer; the main motivation will be profit so 'unprofitable' subjects (where there is not a high take up or where results are not so good) will be cut. The result will be a less rounded offering.

I also worry about whether academies will put in the necessary effort to support children who do not have a formal SEN (that brings in more income) but who struggle academically or have problems at home. I know teachers will want to but will they be supported?

I also heard that some academies are already talking about changing the governance structure for schools so it's more like a corporate board, possibly with the same board overseeing a number of schools. Currently governing bodies know the school very well and include parents and members of the local community. I worry that changing this to a group board who do not know each school/area will mean that the real needs of the children will not be represented.

Hoping someone can persuade me I'm just being too cynical.

I heard on the radio this morning that one of the points would be a 'longer school day'. Does anyone know what this means, in terms of times???

Mini I am taking the longer school day with a pinch of salt. I think this is a mere selling point to get parents to think that academies are a good idea as they will offer longer hours for working parents. They are not obligated to provide longer hours they can just choose to do this if they want. Most academies in my area finish at the same time as other schools and offer after school activities just like other schools so no difference that I can see really.

There is a certain skew to the views on here... (which might be correct, or could be incorrect!)

In theory, being an academy opens up the options for a school - gives it more autonomy, more flexibility in meeting high standards etc. Where it is working, it works very well - there are even independent schools that have moved into the state system and become academies... There are plenty of examples where academies have transformed failing schools...

on the other hand - there are equally examples of where it might have been a negative move - with schools being run more commercially - less for the children (as some of the above comments observe)

LEA control is not necessarily a good thing - it can be very controlling and restrictive... In 15 years of being a governor across all sectors (CofE / LEA / Academy / independent / boarding / day / junior / senior) I am yet to see the LEA work efficiently - good people in the LEA are fantastic - the majority sadly are not...

Ultimately:

• school with good management and governance will usually flourish as an academy
• school with weak management and governance / a controlling company with different priorities - may lose the balancing role of the LEA and suffer

LEA control brings schools to a norm - it may raise the lower schools, but it certainly brings down the better schools - Academy status gives a lot more freedom, freedom to fail or fly

If the government can recognise that and use Ofsted (or something else) as a balance on the schools who move downwards, then it could be a very constructive approach (freedom to excel, but support not to fail) - if that doesn't happen then the likelihood will be a bigger disparity between the best and worst of schools - at the top end they will challenge the best of the independent sector (as is already happening), at the bottom end - well you might not want your children to go there!

As for teachers and qualifications - same pattern, it will allow the good schools to add value - by bringing in those from other industries and sectors to add to a child's enrichment - maybe to use organisations such as Teach First to bring in highly capable people and train them on the job etc. - in poor schools it may be used as an excuse to bring in people who really shouldn't be there... Bear in mind that a school such as Eton which provides a fantastically high-level academic curriculum doesn't have to employ just qualified teachers - the independent sector has been free from that for years - and having trained for 4 years as a teacher, and then spent 20 years since in business, I am convinced that a teaching qualification on its own doesn't make someone a good teacher...

Ultimately many people in this country would like the quality of independent / private education, but not to have to pay for it - Academies if done correctly can give exactly this - it is not the concept of becoming academies that is concerning - it is whether the checks and balances are in place - and that is an issue for all forms of state education...

Does anyone know how it will affect Children with SEN... This especially worries me though I am yet to see any advantage.

Thank you for posting the thread OP..I was wondering exactly the same thing

Another thought ... Do academies have to follow maximum class sizes to

My school got rid of the governors and now has a school improvement board whatever that is

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.

Yes, many PRUs are excellent, but they aren't set up to cater for SEN, so if a child with an EHCP or statement gets excluded they may well have to go without the support they need for some time. There are also legitimate concerns about the peer group available in PRUs for children who may be vulnerable or easily led.

The main issue is whether PRUs will continue to be local authority run if they have no real role in education. I wouldn't want academy chains to get involved, because there would be a serious concern that they would simply become an even more convenient way for them to push out inconvenient pupils.

The benefits for sixth-form colleges far outweigh the consequences (according to our principal).

A number of school heads have believed that only to get some unpleasant surprises when they take the plunge - notably the fact that, when the school has to pay for all the services previously provided by the council the funding available really is not generous. Any benefits in relation to VAT are easily outweighed by the other expenses involved.

If the schools aren't doing so well, maybe a shake-up is needed?

But in practice most maintained schools are doing well. So why do they need to be shaken up? And experience has shown that, for struggling schools, becoming an academy isn't a magic bullet and indeed some good schools have become poor under academy control.

The free schools that people are talking about are different to academies, aren't they?

No, they aren't.

Quick question about faith schools. Will they be changed to academy's too? Plus my dc's school like the majority of other faith schools set their own admissions criteria anyway so would this change? Sorry to sound dumb, it just goes over my head all this.

Yes, most faith schools are in the process of being changed to academy's atm.

all our schools locally are doing very well. more than outstanding and the parents and pupils are most happy. And yet they are still being changed to academy's.

My dc are in an academy. That itself hasn't academically generally been a bad thing here. Most of the staff are pre academy status and the sen provision is very good. We are just entering Multi Academy Trust things and I do have my worries.

Horrace being forced into MAT if you don't do so voluntary is true. We have had a letter about it.