Academies: good or bad idea?

[sweetjane1]

My son's comprehensive is consulting on whether to become an academy. What does everyone think about the pros and cons?

they felt very strongly that it is right that every school contributed to the pot of money the LA uses

Schools don't contribute to "the pot", schools have no almost no funds of their own.

it is also a vote that will take away the right of the LA to moderate any future decision they take
True that the LA would be less involved. Whether this is a good or bad thing will vary based on the school and the relevant LA.

Your reasoning is community based rather than school specific. And they are based on the common misconception - one that the unions have been encouraging - that going academy is a "We're alright, Jack". The underlying presumption is that moving out of LA control is automatically bad for the underprivileged, vulnerable and disadvantaged in the locality.

Poppy cock!

Even if it were true - and I repeat that it's not - the duty of the governors is to do what's right for the school. They are managers of your school, have undertaken to protect the school's interests, and they do their best to take decisions that will serve the school well within the community.

It's the government's job to formulate and implement social policies, not the GB's. Governors who have decided against conversion on the grounds that it will adversely affect other schools in the LA / disadvantaged children in the LA etc., are guilty of a dereliction of duty/exceeding their brief.

It seemed the feeling of many people at the meeting that they would prefer our dcs' school to manage with a few £K less
It's funny how the masses are all financial experts. Have they seen the budgets? Have they seen how much less they are going to have to manage with? A few £K!?

Do they realise that with those reduced figures they don't just have to run the school like they did last year. They may also have to buy all those services that the LA is stopping because other schools have gone academy. Trust me, LAs across the country are cutting services left, right and centre. Do these folk know how much those services cost? Do they know the other drastic measures some LAs are considering including starting school at 6, running schools for only 4 days in the week etc? Just making up the lost LA services would bleed the school so dry they'd have to jettison staff. How does this impact on pupils numbers? Can they still take 90 new pupils a year in reception or would they have to cut it to 60 or 30?

I agree with you that the LA providing a whole range of services that some schools in more affulent areas might not need...is a good thing. But the whole landscape is changing and most LAs are going to be dropping whole rafts of services. They're doing it because as schools are going academy and leaving them many services become uneconomical to supply. If a school chooses to stay with the LA they'll be funding a higher and higher percentage of the remaining LA services as more and more schools leave. They could get to a point where they are no longer viable. This could happen in as little as 2-3 years. What happens then? The LA will merge them with another school! End of your school.

but I do disagree with you that the Governors should be able to take such a major decision

We don't disagree. I don't believe that governors should be able to take such a major decision.

But it's a bit too late to stand for Parliament and influence the legislation.

nder a change to becoming an academy, that 'top-slice' goes directly to the schools, not to the LA ....Even the Gvnrs, by the end of the meeting, were saying - "I know the money isn't that much in the whole scheme of things".

Either the academies are going to cream off money to the extent that local services collapse (lots of money) ...or the money "isn't that much".

You can't have it both ways.

it doesn't make it poppycock just bcause the unions support a view
The unions have a vested interest: Academies don't have to follow state pay scales. They can reward better teachers with more money. That's anathema to the unions because incompetent teachers would earn less.

and the school isn't serving that community by contributing to the demise of services to the most vulnerable
And your basis for this is....?

Academies have a financial incentive to invest in catering for the most vulnerable, they have a requirement to twin with an under performing school and raise standards, they have incentive to take on SEN and disadvantaged pupils from outside catchment and there is a coalition government that has pinned its next election chances on the changes not adversely affecting the vulnerable.

Do you know what percentage of the current funding for all these services is wasted in admin at the LA? Councils are *notorious" for getting poor value for money.

Council spend £5M to save £3.9M
Another council was spending £108,000 a year to run a school with just two pupils (their mother was head teacher). Yet another spent hundreds of thousands to install lifts for the disabled and then closed the institution two weeks later. There are plenty of examples of councils spending £xxx to change a light bulb.

Just cutting councils out should release millions (billions?) more for those that need it more than council fat cats.

I think cat64 has made many extra points that I didn't make. But accountability to the locality was one thing that was raised at a meeting held the other day regarding our local school. The decision-making process had been rushed through without even informing the public in the catchment area that this decision is likely to be made (like the example given above, it seems the governors, ahead of their formal vote, have already basically decided to go ahead). Only the parents of current pupils heard about the "consideration to become an academy" and without any awareness that the decision would be taken a month later. Concerned parents informed the press and called a public meeting for anyone concerned - some of those who felt left out of this crucial consultation process were parents of children in feeder schools and indeed young couples/parents-to-be who will have no choice but to send their child to the academy once it is converted since it is the only local secondary.

Differential pay for teachers as a good thing? Yes, if you want to get rid of unions and national pay bargaining. With money becoming increasingly tight, and teachers facing redundancies all over, why should their skills be de-valued when a school decides it will offer lower pay to its next geography teacher (but woo! thanks for even offering a job at all!). With unequal pay for the same jobs, teachers will be demoralised and the atmosphere in schools will be appalling.

Without secret-balloting the teachers in the school prior to making the decision to go to academy status, how can a governing body know just how many of their teachers might actually jump ship if the move is made? Or they have to swallow hard and accept a system without LEA support (advisors), without future pay and conditions security, and in a system shelling out for all the things covered by the LEA before - legal aid for when those service providers don't measure up.

The concerns about SEN stand, as someone above mentioned. That top-slice which is returned to the academy robs the LEA of Learning Support money. A school is more than a business, it is a community-owned thing, but the academies bill turns them into private companies where money, not concern for the pupils, is the bottom line.

I'm not sure what you mean by "Learning Support money". However, the position on SEN is complex.

To deal with the easy bit first, the LA retains funding for educational psychology services, SEN assessments, statementing, monitoring of SEN provision, parent partnerships, individually assigned SEN resources for pupils with rare conditions needing expensive provision, etc.

The complicated bit is what happens with other SEN funding. The previous government encouraged LAs to pass all of this funding on to schools. Many LAs have complied. In those areas academies will be in exactly the same position as LA-controlled schools. However, some LAs have retained some or all of this SEN funding centrally. In these LAs the academy will receive additional funding for SEN compared to the LA-controlled schools.

Individually assigned funding for children with statements is paid to the school through the LA for both academies and LA-controlled schools.

There are concerns about SEN but that is to do with the way some existing academies have dealt with SEN children rather than the funding arrangements.

On the question of pay, most private sector companies have unequal pay for the same job depending on the experience and ability of the job holder. Does that mean their employees are demoralised and have an appalling atmosphere? And giving an academy freedom to set its own pay rates doesn't necessarily mean that teacher pay will go down. Academies can pay more than the national pay rates in order to attract outstanding teachers if they wish.

LAs supply not just SEN services - they've got their finger in every pie from running the teacher payroll every month to legal advice for governors to staff recruitment.

In fact, the bulk of their spending on schools is not for vulnerable groups.

I'll bet that most of those services they provide can be done at less cost by the private sector. Considerably less cost. In fact many services are already being provided by the private sector and the LA pays them (after skimming off a big chunk for managing the process).

It's cheaper for schools and clusters to deal directly with providers. Savings made could be used for increased services to the vulnerable. (It's not mandatory on academies to so use it, but it's certainly in their best interest)

How would you feel if moving to an academy left a school and a community with more money to spend on vulnerable groups?

Without secret-balloting the teachers in the school prior to making the decision to go to academy status, how can a governing body know just how many of their teachers might actually jump ship if the move is made
No school would have ever converted to an academy if they secret balloted staff first - most staff would have taken the union line! :)

That's bollocks ballots. In real life it works differently. If they are well looked after and are able to get on with the job, are given better resources and more help etc., my guess is that they'd stay.

But the private sector exists to make money - not to provide services. They will not offer services that don't make a profit to themselves. Getting things wholesale can be cheaper to all who source it from a central provider.

"Could be used" "If they are well looked after" -

the point is not whether one trusts the current school and its leadership to maintain what is already a good school (currently it is only Outstanding and Good With Outstanding schools that are being invited to apply) - the point is that there is no longer a safeguard on these things. Schools may possibly pay some teachers more in future years, and to lessen its pay-roll employ some cheap teachers with fewer pension rights. I don't believe such a small group of self-selecting people should have that right, and I don't believe it helps the education of the children concerned. With academies, the bottom line has to be about finance rather than education; it has to be about what will look good, so they can attract the number of pupils they need. It offers no security or safeguards or guarantees.

In this Lib-Dem doc (amazing considering they're going along with it all) - it explains how some of the funding for academies is coming from the Dedicated Schools Grant, previously used for pupils with special needs - ea.lib.dm/en/article/2011/453904/more-on-the-funding-of-academies

The whole thing is profoundly anti-democratic, and profoundly divisive and anti-social justice.

Yes, the private sector exists to make a profit. However, there is plenty of evidence that the public sector is generally more wasteful. Remember that the LA is currently a monopoly supplier to local schools with no incentive to reduce costs. Remember also that LAs can offer services to academies if they wish. Provided the academy wants the services on offer from the LA and is willing to pay the price it can continue to use the LA's services.

If you want a specific example, I know of one primary school that wanted to install warm water to all classrooms so that children could wash their hands after messy activities. The PTA found that they get the job done over a weekend using reputable local tradesmen for about £250. However, the LA insisted that the school use the approved contractor costing £2000 and taking 3 months. No saving there from using the LA's services!

The Dedicated Schools Grant covers many things. Only a very tiny proportion of it is for pupils with special needs. The complaint of the document you point to is that the funding for academies is being deducted from the budget of all LAs regardless of whether or not they have any academies. I have to say that I agree it would make more sense to deduct money from LA budgets dependent on the number of academies within the LA. However, to make out that this is about special needs is completely wrong.

I would also point out that the second paragraph of that article is seriously misleading. The sentence "Part is recouped from the LA and is taken out of that part of the Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG) which is retained by the LA, with the agreement of the schools and the Schools Forum, to pay for centrally arranged provision for individual pupils with particular and high costs needs" is complete rubbish. The part deducted by the LA (often without the agreement of the schools and the Schools Forum) pays for a wide range of things, not just provision for individual pupils with high cost needs. And, as I have already indicated, that part of the LA budget is not affected - LAs do not lose a single penny from the money used for pupils with high cost needs.

Getting things wholesale can be cheaper to all who source it from a central provider.
All the more reason then to get rid of these councils who get it cheaper but charge schools 10 times the going market rate to do some hot water plumbing!

In this Lib-Dem doc (amazing considering they're going along with it all)
They're going along with it because they realise where the huge waste is! They've cottoned on that they can get exactly the same results with a fraction of the money.

But the private sector exists to make money - not to provide services. They will not offer services that don't make a profit to themselves.
I agree. And that's where the government needs to take a more active role to install safeguards and regulation that ensures required services are maintained. They have not done this yet. Should they have done that before converting schools to academies? It's a chicken or egg question.

Schools may possibly pay some teachers more in future years, and to lessen its pay-roll employ some cheap teachers with fewer pension rights.
Would your top priority be getting the children the best education and the best value for money ...or protecting teachers? The two don't necessarily go together.

Teacher costs are huge despite the fact that we pay our teachers a pittance. If the worst teachers are weeded out that's not a bad thing at all. In another thread I linked to a quote from the head of the GTC about 3% of teachers being er, not fit for purpose. 3% is 17,000 teachers. That's £3,000,000.00 we're wasting every single school day.

My son's school is considering converting now. The school isn't really consulting much with parents so my partner put this site together so parents could comment. garstangacademyforum.blogspot.com

It has some useful links in the sidebar.

I'm under the impression that any LA Maintained school can source its services and supllies such as payroll, etc.. from anywhere it wants, I know of some that do!

well there we go www.tes.co.uk/news/school-news/breaking-news/no-link-between-academy-status-and-overall-gcse-performance