To wonder what changes when a school becomes an academy?

[Foodtheif]

Any experience? There are talks about my daughters’ primary school becoming an academy but we haven’t been told much about this yet. I’m sure we will in time but does anyone know how this may affect the pupils? Will they see any changes? Parents? Teachers? All I know is that the LA won’t own(?) the school anymore but the governors will.

I may be cynical, but normally it starts with changing the uniform to something expensive.

In terms of governance, the school is free from local authority control so the governing body can introduce new pay structures which seem to involve inflated pay for senior management balanced by employing unqualified teachers on lower wages either to teach classes, or cover absence. You'll probably see money spent on advertising to attract more business.

School may well join a multi-academy trust (MAT) which makes it part of the same chain as other schools. In theory this is to spread good practice, give access to more facilities and economies of scale in purchasing. It will also take financial control away from the school so that the MAT can use capital from one school to subsidise building at another, or pay Trust management salaries.

You can probably tell I don't think they are a good thing. Free market principles should not apply to children's education.

Our school have just done this with two others as a group. I objected but only 20 parents at our school did then again only 35 cared enough to respond.

So far nothing seems different but I’m waiting for it. I don’t trust it. I don’t trust our head.

My experience is they are more likely to not want children with sen/exclude them.

It is all about the money. I thoguht it sounded great - shiny new things to tempt us in. Crap teachers, (most NQT and most non- native speakers, - sorry but teaching English FFS). No support for SN - horrible culture. Extreme bullying whichwas never dealt with.
All they need is bums on seats and they don't care.
And all the money goes to the guys at the top.

This was at secondary BTW

I work at an outstanding academy part of a small MAT. We have a higher than average proportion of children with SEN and are known locally for good practice, higher than average exam results and no unqualified teachers. We are paid on the national pay scale and no expensive uniform.

Just to offer a different personal experience!

I agree with Hereward. Our school became an academy and later joined a multi-academy. I haven't witnessed any positive changes, in fact the school seems to have less money than previously. Many of the previous very experienced teachers left and they have employed loads of NQTs and also unqualified teachers (learning on the job). The number of school trips has reduced which I suspect is to do with the increased insurance costs due to being an academy and not able to buy into the collective LEA insurance. They have found the money to rebrand themselves and have a new school uniform provider. Meanwhile SEN provision at the school is poor, I've been told they cant afford extra help. I think these multi academies are a bit of a scam, if you look at the financial reports for them the CEOs are on ridiculous money, one I looked at was on 110 thousand a year. No wonder there's no money for the classroom.

Working in education, I say well done to you OP for finding out. Too many parents don't. I'm shocked at how little parents understand or contribute to consultation.

I'm equally frustrated when things go wrong and SM parents comments include ' the LA aren't doing anything' or 'report to the LA'. For some things, yes but not for most.

Academies opt out of LA control, giving them much less accountability through the councils elected members.
Pay scales are high for executive HT's, who in my experience are self appointed. Certainly their pay, against an LA officer is massively increased. A CEO overseeing 8 primary schools in my locality, earns nearly £100,000 whereas the head of school improvement, accountable for 350 primary and secondary schools earns up to £70,000.

Academies don't have to employ qualified teachers ( though some do). They often have a Head of School ( a senior teacher ) who is paid less than a Headteacher to manage the school on a daily basis.
Discipline can be 'unusual', exclusions high ( tho gov are cracking down on off rolling before exams to keep outcomes high).
Trusts running the schools can be quite distant and not in tune with local need.
Small trusts are, ever increasingly in danger of being 'taken over' by larger multi academy trusts. They won't have a choice about this.
Trusts are not interested and will not academise small, financially stretched schools. Doesn't fit the business model. ( tho the LA will continue to try and support small schools in rural areas)

There are some moral trusts out there.

Schools in difficulty are forced to academise under an inadequate judgement. Trusts can access massive amounts of money from the DfE to turn these schools around. LA's could equally turn these schools around but can't access the hundreds of thousand pounds to do so.

Locally the number of schools choosing to become an academy has slowed. We have no more choosing once three awaiting have gone through.

Hmmm. Not good then. My eldest daughter has nearly finished but my youngest has a chronic health problem. Do they still have to adhere to inclusion stuff etc. I assume so. Also what about ofsted? Do academies still have to have ofsted inspections?

They still have OFTSED and to be fair some academies pride themselves on inclusion.

It really depends on the culture - whether they see themselves as a school or as a business providing education.

seen ds primary turn into an academy. its become more anti sen, sats factory. expensive uniform, staff have left.

secondary level never seen a positive one. dh has been through a few la schools turn into academy. staff are treated like shit, worked to the bone (so leave in droves) leaving not enough staff to fill in gaps. put it this way ds school does not have a proper language, music teacher at all. its all "cover". as above for primary.

dh has been at his secondary academy 3 years. HALF the staff have gone.

I work for a small MAT made up of small successful rural schools who had each academised at various points. Since becoming a MAT we suddenly have no money for books, stationery, paper, photocopying, computers... you know, just basic classroom resources!! What we do have is a team of 4 or 5 senior leaders/directors whose combined salary and benefits exceeds £700k pa. (we found out via FOI request by the teaching unions).

The whole system is corrupt and immoral.

My DC have been at an academy since September. The only thing I’ve noticed that’s different from their previous non-academy school is the insistence on logo jumpers.

The school I teach at changed into an academy a few years ago. We didn't join an existing trust we created one. As far as parents and children are concerned nothing has changed. However we were free to buy in services we saw fit I stead of LEA ones also we took on other failing schools over the years and some members of staff would train teachers from the failing schools etc. Same uniform, still follow NC, we still adhere to the LEA admissions policy. Like I said no real change to families at all.

Unfortunately I doubt the damage caused by academisation is reversible.

Food - your DD’s health condition, is it documented ie GP / Consultant diagnosis? You will be covered under Equal Act and Access to Education Provision.

Depends on what the issue is and it’s severity as to how it can be dealt with in school. Eg medications, physical aids, stair access, lighting...

The school should have someone who is responsible for this. Not just learning support (if the condition impacts on learning).

In my experience they pay their staff (except those at the very top) very low wages, which leads to high staff turnover (unsettling for the children). A huge amount of money was spent on providing things like fancy lunches for visitors - everything seemed to be about projecting a certain image while ignoring the fact that many of the staff were extremely unhappy. I’d never work at one again.

Single school academies cannot often afford to self sustain so they have to create a small academy network with a couple of other schools in the area. This allows them to pool resources - this ultimately means redundancies.

MATS (Multi Academy Trusts) also need a board of directors, these are paid by top slicing the money the school gets, which impacts on the funds available to spend on the pupils.

I've seen long standing staff sacked/made redundant/forced to resign/driven to actual breakdown/in one case suicide and replaced with NQTs who are ridiculously promoted to HODs within 2-3 years.

I've seen, actually witnessed, attempted to be coerced into fraudulently altering coursework. Some exams are done online, been instructed to book the sittings and sit the exams myself to ensure a pass.

Academies are morally bankrupt and financially incompetent

schoolsweek.co.uk/investigation-the-highs-and-occasional-lows-of-academy-ceo-pay/

www.tes.com/news/revealed-28-academy-trusts-ordered-justify-ceo-pay

www.tes.com/news/academy-trust-defends-pay-rise-ceo-earning-more-ps210000

Don’t set me off on Ofsted – they come out at a cost of 20K – we used to call it MockStead – and they do a pseudo report – the academy then puts in place provision for any faults, then Ofsted come back in their real guise and the place passes with flying colours. Corrupt!

Then there is the Ofsted grading. As I understand it, if a school gets two 3’s on the bounce and the third is also a 3, it automatically goes into special measures -4. To avoid this for government statistics, a 2 is often awarded , then it is re-inspected and put back to a 3.

schoolsweek.co.uk/failing-schools-more-likely-to-improve-under-la-control-new-study-claims/

www.theguardian.com/education/2018/jul/22/academy-schools-scandal-failing-trusts

They off roll pupils to massage statistics:

www.tes.com/news/academy-failed-ofsted-rolling-pupils

I am yet to see any benefit to my DS's primary, which was forced became an Academy about a year ago.

School lunches are smaller.
TA hours have been cut (granted that's an issue all over).
From what I've heard the payroll system has been out-sourced and there have been countless mistakes.
The Governor's report was on some wanky glossy paper.
The uniform changed.

The school was fine as it was IMO.

the off rolling of SEN in particular has mean`t a huge rise in home education. Thus the online schools have sprung up. they are bridging the gap. ds will be doing online school next september.

Academies are a way for the Tories to privatise education and finish off the teaching unions. That is their sole purpose - anything else is just bluster.

My experience is a positive one on the whole. There has been very little change at all from a pupil point of view. They take a fair amount of SEN students, the uniform didn't change. I think the main changes were behind the scenes with teacher contracts however, a lot still work for council, only new teachers taken on work directly for the academy. This was about 5 years ago. So not always a bad thing from a parent point of view anyway.

Uniform gets more expensive
Good staff leave
Children with Sen are forced out
Michael Gove thinks they are great
Other than that they are wonderful