ACADEMIES - the truth

[chunkie]

I am a PT teacher and parent of four kids aged from 2-11, so I have more than a vested interest in education! I am not sure how many people are aware of the implications of the academy policy being pursued by the government right now. Regardless of the politics of what it will mean to have a privatised education system, I am also curious about the following :-

a) Is it true that academies are discriminating against children who have SEN, either explicitly or implicitly?

b) Are complaints about academies being handled well? Rather than going to the Local Authority, any difficulties that parents cannot resolve with the academy are being sorted by the civil service in Whitehall.

c) I am interested to hear from teachers and parents as to how the process of conversion was undertaken, and what academy life is like. Has the ethos in the academy changed? Is it true that more untrained teachers are being used?

Chunkie, none of these questions are answerable. Each academy is as different as each school. You could only answer them on a case by case basis.

They are not allowed to discriminate against children with SEN anymore than any other school. But there are maintained, academies, voluntary aided and independent schools that do so.

But legally your protection is the same.

Untrained teachers, in the form of cover supervisors or TAs, are used in most schools.

What makes a school good or bad is the HT. This is true of academies and every other school.

Lincolnshire has asked every single school to convert. Where I live every single secondary school has converted. So if you have a problem with academies HE or private is you only option......

These questions are answerable IndigoBell, because people will have experiences that they can share.

Academies are not allowed to discriminate against children with SEN, but that does not mean it does not happen. For example, a family I know who have a daughter at an academy in Lincoln have decided not to send their son who has SEN there because he won't "fit in" with the school's emphasis on narrow academic attainment . This is where the whole point of academies encouraging backdoor selection becomes so troubling. They should be catering for all children. What about the higher exclusion rates from academies?

Additionally, another parent has complained to me that the school where his kids go converted to academy status last year, and has non-qualified teachers replacing exisiting experienced ones. I fear that we will see more of this as each school, in effect, becomes run on its own business model.

I live in Lincolnshire. I do not wish to either HE, nor can I afford to go private. If we are being promised choice in education, is my first choice of sending my kids to a happy and thriving community school, with strong links to the community through the LA and governors, one that is now taken away from me?

What on earth does the term community school even mean? In what way does an academy not server the community?

The kind of discrimination against SEN you talk about is just as common in maintained schools - I'm not sure there's any reason to believe it happens statistically more in academies than in maintained schools.

So what are you going to do? Move out of Lincolnshire? How many years of education do your kids have left? 5? 10? What are the chances that wherever you move to all schools will have converted to in the next 5 or 10 years.

The govt wants all schools to convert. Schools don't really have much choice. But it's still the HT that makes a school good or bad.

You are betting on a LA you probably know very little about. The reason lots of schools convert is because the LA is truly rubbish. Counties where very few schools are converting and the counties where the LA are good and worth sticking to.

Lots of maintained schools are dreadful why you wouldn't want your child to go to. Would you rather go to a dreadful maintained school than a brilliant academy?

A community school is another name for a local authority run school.

And no, discrimination of that kind is not typical in maintained schools - I have worked in plenty in my time and should know.

But choice is the central issue here isn't it?
I know an awful lot about the local authority involved because I work for them. We are one of the top performing LAs in the country.

Why are schools converting here then? Because the LA are awful? No. The LA is rated outstanding.
So why then? They are converting because officers of the local authority are also employees of a major academy chain who have an existing contract with the council. It is this chain of academies that have been endorsed as the preferred sponsor for academies in the county. Very very neat and tidy.

Once we sign over our education to business sponsors, we will see much much more of this.

Lots of maintained schools are dreadful? Well, the one I teach at and the other ones my kids go are brilliant. SO why do we want to change a system that is working so well ? IT IS PURE POLITICS, AND NOTHING TO DO WITH EDUCATION.

Very interesting lead questions. I hope many more people come on and tell of their Academy experiences.

The Heads I have heard talking say they are wonderful schools. (We need to know a lot more than that cliche)

FREE SCHOOLS (daft name) Toby Young launched his on wednesaday. tis said he has 17 per cent on free school meals.

I agree with IndigoBell that there is no universal answer to these questions.

No academies explicity discriminate against SEN children. I'm sure that some do in practise but this is also true of maintained schools and, indeed, LAs. You only have to look at some of the threads on here to see that.

Under current regulations all teachers working in academies must have QTS status unless there are exceptional circumstances, such as when a school can't fill a post, the teacher is training "on the job" or, for a fixed period of time, teachers from overseas. These are the same rules as for maintained schools.

There were some hiccups in handling complaints about academies in the early days (i.e. when the last government started setting up academies) but these seem to have been resolved. I am not going to say that all complaints are now handled adequately but I wouldn't say that about maintained schools either. Again, if you follow threads on here you will come across instances where LAs have been completely useless (or even actually damaging) when dealing with complaints about schools.

And I'm sorry but the education system is NOT working well. Get real. Look at the way we are slipping down the international league tables. Look at the number of children who leave primary school unable to adequately read, write and do basic arithmetic. Parts of our education system are brilliant. Parts of it are rubbish.

CfBT Schools Trust is a charity which currently operates two academies and a free school. They are NOT "business sponsors". They do indeed manage a number of services for Lincolnshire. Whilst the LA seems to be encouraging conversion, the decision to convert to an academy will be made by the governing body of the schools concerned.

Chunkie I guess you are not a science teacher? Because you cannot answer these questions. Yes you can hear about one academy, or a handful; but in this country there are now hundreds of academies. You cannot generalise from reports of a handfull.
Let me give an example. Independent schools, you could get reports from parents of children at Eton, Winchester, St Paul's Boys and Westminster; and conclude that all independent schools have fees over £10000 a term, are highly academic, and educate only boys. However I could then come back with examples of: girls schools and mixed schools, schools for those with SEN, and with much lower fees, also some that do rather badly by their ppils compared to local state schools.

My kids are at an academy which has a special unit for the visually impared, and has excellent SEN provision. This is one of the new breed academies which was an Outstanding school before, and has changed status for the financial incentives. Other academies are heavily influenced by partnering organisations, of a wide variety of types; not all religious, some charitable. Others are failing schools which are being "turned around" by academy status. Some are established schools others are new schools.
Some may try to wriggle out of taking SEN students, others try to take unqualified staff, or wriggle out of pay scales etc (especially for support staff).

A simple question here won't tell you much. Just as someone saying that their local C of E secondary is outstanding doesn't mean I would want to send my kids to either of the local ones (one of which had only 5 people put it as their first choice I have heard).

If you look at Finland and the great success it has over there you will see,

a) a state funded and state run education system which has no league tables
b) small class sizes
c) a well paid and well trained teaching force.

By all means look to improve education, but don't move in the total opposite direction to where the success is! The jury is well and truly out on the results of the charter school system in the States and the free schools movement in Sweden.

As for QTS status, I have seen adverts for a Lincolnshire academy which was explicitly asking for a permanent UQT (unqualified teacher) psychology teacher.

As for CfBT, check out their annual finance report and see if you think more business or charity....

And finally, if a LA is telling the schools that it no longer wishes to exist ( as Lincolnshire is), what choice do the governors really have?

Is anyone else concerned that the education system seems to be being dismantled in what seems to be an experiment? If Gove has his way and we see LAs abolished, what will become of provision that the most vulnerable kids rely on?

mummytime
If academies are no longer accountble to the pubic via the LA (which I agree is an imperfect system, but still has to be better than having to go down to Whitehall!) how do you actually know what is happening other than stories that people are telling? Which is why I posted...I don't have the answers, which is why I asked the question!

As you mention outstanding schools that converted first for the financial incentive, is it not worth pointing out that they became outstanding through the LA system that people say is broken? And that many of them were already partnering schools within the LA?

And as these schools run off with their extra slice of funding that would normally have gone for shared provision for vulnerable children within the entire LA, they have permanently weakened the provision for those schools who are in actual need for that funding?

I am still yet to be convinced that leaving our education system to one based upon market forces is anything other than a recipie for disaster.

I fail to see how academies are moving in the "total opposite direction". They are state funded. Some work with smaller class sizes than maintained schools and some pay their teachers better than maintained schools. As I have already pointed out, academies are subject to the same requirement for teacher training as maintained schools. Both are able to employ unqualified teachers under certain circumstances. They are not moving in exactly the same direction as Finland but they are not diametrically opposed to what happens there.

If you think CfBT is a business you obviously don't understand the difference between a business and a charity. They are clearly a charity. They are a not for profit organisation (which does not mean they never make a profit but I note that they made a substantial loss last year) and they do not distribute any profits to their members. There is of course a lot of similarity between a large charity and a business but the dividing line is clear. CfBT is a charity.

Part of the idea of removing academies from LA control is to make them more accountable to parents. I don't know how successful that will be.

It is also worth pointing out that the first academies were set up under the last government and were NOT outstanding schools prior to conversion. Most have improved dramatically since converting to academy status. They are generally working much better than the struggling inner city schools they replaced and producing substantially improved results.

In Grantham Lincolnshire the 2 Grammar schools have been looking into the benefits of becoming acadamies. The Boys Grammar have decided to become a selective academy and have told the pupils and Parents this will mean the school will benefit to the tune of £500 per pupil . The girls grammar on the other hand have refused and been quite vocal about the reasonings believing acadamy status to be a short term gain which is not worth losing the grammar school status for.
Teachers from the boys school have written to the local paper expressing their dismay about the decision for the Kings school no longer be classed as a grammar. Sir Issac Newton went there!

and Margaret Thatcher went to the girsl school!

Yes but lets not mention that...............

From a teacher's pov:

Not consulted despite majority of staff against conversion - large school

Fear that unions will lose any ability to stand up for decent pay and conditions, as they do a lot at the moment - if pay an conditions are different everywhere, they can't help.

The govt always want teachers to take on more work and do more hours - the standard pay and conditions of teachers in maintained schools protects them from unreasonable requests. Academy staff have no such protection.

This isn't airy fairy stuff - most teachers I know have turned to their union for help with P+C issues at some point.

De-unionising staff = the govt's aim.

As a parent of a child whose school ( supposedly failing ) became an Academy 3 years ago ,my experience has not been a good one .

Although there is lots of polished spin ,there is still no PTA or parents forum and communication between the school and parents is non existent .
Changes in policy - curriculum ,entry to sixth form ,dress code etc - are signalled by implementation .

The sixth form ,graded outstanding before Academy status ,is now only good and the A level results have declined .
While GCSE results have increased ,so have entry for new GCSE "equivalent " exams .
Certainly a lot of time and money was expended on GCSE students - often at the expense of A level students whose teachers were used to supplement GSCE teaching ( cover for absence ) .
Now that the additional start up funding is gone I imagine some of the bribes ( laptops ,bikes ) for GCSE students attending out of school booster classes will disapear .

Personally I think having different schools in the same local authority run by different Academy sponsors ,all trying to outdo eachother is not the way forward .
It just increases the league table effect were schools concentrate on how to work the system so that they climb the tables rather than on providing a good education to all .

Ours changed, and nothing has changed that I can see. Time will tell, I suppose.

King's School in Grantham is a good example of a school that has has jumped with the times! Unlike KGGS, it was direct grant for a while.

It also used to have a boarding option.

Ours has just changed, we have a fantastic head who has just rolled out an iPad to each and every child in the school (three year lease basis). A decent head will manage the funding far better than a LA without a finger truly on the pulse. It's more efficient for a start and resources will be directed where they are appropriate rather than the fudging system that saw money for x come in only to be spent on y because there was no x at the school.

KGGS is just coming out of a bad time with falling standards etc. Not surprising they don't want to 'jump with the times'

if you want to compare finland to the UK, you first need to delete every place in the UK larger than Finlands largest city (Tampere, pop 206k).

then you have a demographically comparable place.

I certainly hope you are right medriana as all being well the next 2 saturdays ds will be there next year . Kggs head is brilliant

My kids school became an academy as so many other schools were becoming academies that it was in danger of becoming the only Outstanding (and a rarity among Good) school under LA control, therefore to have reduced spending on SEN and other provision, as the LA struggled to support those schools with desperate needs. Academies can also protect themselves from "rogue" headteachers or groups of governors, by becoming a trust.
BTW my kids school was not a "foundation" school when that was tried, because its senior staff believe in community schools, however this time they felt they had no option.
They also don't employ non qualified teachers (even the foreign teachers are on a conversion scheme, run by the school), but my kids do both have a Chemistry teacher teaching them Maths, which can happen in any school.

It is not more efficient for a head to manage funding Alouise. Individual schools do not have the buying power or administration and experience of a whole LA. Academies are having to buy in the sort of consultants and expertise that they would have got for free from the LA at a greater cost.

I guess that rather depends on the head and his or her background.