Academies in Special Measures : Now we see whether the alternative to LEAs will work

[TalkinPeace2]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-18186797

Sponsored, two schools, same head, been in trouble for a while.
LEA powerless to act.
Trust dragging its heels
Kids being let down

and so it begins

and its academies that are REALLY starting to scare me.
I was ambivalent before as I (stupidly) assumed there was a safety net
but the list of stalls at the www.academiesshow.co.uk/
(lots of furniture, bugger all about learning)
should be a wakeup call to EVERY parent.

Your Academy converter school may be excellent now, but will it still be so in 2 years time - and if not, who will sort it out as the LEA cannot, the sponsor will not and the SMT are the problem.

BE concerned - become a governor ASAP

Well, you could become a governor and then get sacked by the DFE. That's what happened to Nightingale School in Haringey - put on a 'notice to improve' for the first time ever end of last year, never been below the floor target, refused to agree to become a sponsored academy, so governors sacked an IEB populated by people from AET instated by DfE and it's becoming a sponsored academy in September.

www.education.gov.uk/cgi-bin/schools/performance/school.pl?urn=102126&superview=pri

Why this school, other than that Gove has decided to pick a fight with Haringey? There are thousands of schools performing less well, plenty in Surrey where Gove's constituency is.

I saw the Academies Show stuff - like pigs to the trough with barely a mention of children, teaching or learning.

Nope, so safety net and no strategic vision - it's purely ideological and Gove and Wilshaw are making it up as they go along.

Most new academies do not have sponsors. A lot still have very strong connections with the LA.

The list of stalls at the Academies show is bound to be all commercial ventures. That's true of nigh on all conferences.

But it's a worthwhile link, for if you go there and look at the list of main events at the conference, speakers and seminars you would come away with a completely different view:

"Building an environment which inspires and supports young people to succeed
Facilitating good working relationships with stakeholders including local authorities
Creating a curriculum in line with highest international standards
Promoting staff and pupil engagement
Championing innovative thinking"

Rosebud. You are quite right I was referring to maintained schools, and pointing out that the LA has significant FORMAL powers (can sack the Governors, and so, by extension the Head) IF the school is put into special measures. I was also pointing out that an LA with its act together has a significant INFORMAL role in helping schools in difficulties short of special measures. This arises when an LA has no power to intervene without an invitation from the Governors, but the invitation is forthcoming. An LA has no FORMAL authority to intervene in an Academy, nor does it have the resources to do anything else. It has no role relating to an Academy at all.

This means that the question "What happens when an Academy goes into special measures?" Is a really good question, to which I have yet to see a good answer.

Here's the link to the programme that meditrina mentions -

www.academiesshow.co.uk/seminar-programme/

Inspiring, isn't it

mummytime, I'm completely aware of that and was giving an example of a school which - for no reasons other than ideological ones by the Sof S - isn't being given any say in its future.

Nightingale School, Haringey has never been below the floor target. There's no rational or evidence-based justification for the SofS's bullying of this and other Haringey primary schools.

talking and nlondondad make very sailent points about the current enormous uncertainty about 'what happens when an academy goes into special measures?' (and they are doing, at a rate of knots) .

Rosebud05: Having seen at close quarters the progress of schools that have become sponsored academies often within chain academy companies, it has always surprised me how quickly a school that wasn't a candidate for SM previously, is suddenly placed in SM, then within a short time is handed over to a sponsor/chain. Then surprise, surprise within a term comes out of SM. How can a school improve that quickly!!! Happy situation you might think, unfortunately more often than not these new controlled academies then experience a real fall in performance, results etc. For many years they bump along the bottom, just surving Ofsted by using creative avoidance measures !!! and with ever lower exam result grades. More and more 'equivalent' GCSE courses are introduced in an attempt to improve league table results. Parents continually being assured that things are really 'world class' and improving. Neither the DFE or Mr Gove appear to do anything about these academies even though they must be fully aware of the situation as mandatory data is submitted routinely to the DFE/EFA as they are the monitoring bodies.

In the past student numbers dropped in these academies as parents found alternative schools, this avenue is now being removed as more schools are becoming individual converter academies with enforced (see funding agreements) admission catchment areas, consequently parents are forced back into the local substandard academies unless they can afford to move house. Despite professed government policies parental choice is being seriously reduced in these areas it seems

My local school was a pair of dire schools before - each with 700 on roll.
It is now a sponsored academy with 400 on roll

All of the surrounding schools have converted into non sponsor academies
BUT
the change in them is tangibly for the worse
and as they were "outstanding" OFSTED has been told to back off for a couple of years

which is all it takes for the odure to interact with the excrement.

Having worked in good and bad academies, I think it's a bit unfair to judge so harshly. they do improve standards better and faster than most local authorities by changing the staff, the curriculum and practices. i worked at one where at least 10% of the staff would be off sick on any given day, expect to be paid in full for the days they don't want to come in to do the work that they would rather choose to do at whatever pace they chose. A member of the old SLT who exclaimed "you can't polish a turd" was offered a compromise to go asap and she was perceived as being counter-productive to student progress after 15 years on the job. On becoming an Academy, that was all changed and the school came out of special measures and doubled results in 2 years.

There's a lot more that goes on behind the scenes and needs to go on for the change to happen. As a result of propaganda, the new HT was threatened a lot, spat on by angry parents, had sit in protests including one where the parents carried hammers and chased away parents who tried to attend the prospective parents evening (police intervention required). Old HT and her staff shredded risk assessments, electrical certificates, staff contracts, electrical plans, fire plans and emergency evac procedures etc thereby putting students lives at risk. Local authority did nothing put whinge about the cost of making teachers redundant asking if they could be kept on staff to save money. Students ran riot and it didn't often occur to the teachers to rally them into class or impose sanctions for playing football on the field during lesson time.

Good Headteachers know what good teaching looks like and the biggest indicators for school success are good teaching and learning and good leadership and management. The NPQH program addresses the other skills required although it doesn't always work. Some local authorities are notoriously bad with educational standards including Basildon Council. I will admit, said academy sponsorships was questionable as it was one sort of american investment banker dude and the new principal is on his first headship which is a tricky combo.

One of the predecessor schools had almost always been in special measures and the council did not make any improvements. this was just an opportunity to absolve themselves of blame for the first time in the history of the school.

I suppose my experience is unusual but the academy route was the best way out and the local authority supported academy status at the time because it admitted it didn't know what to do.

Actually, the data doesn't show that 'academies improve standards better and faster than most local authorities' at all. It doesn't matter how many times the DfE make this claim - it still isn't empirically correct!

From your description, the school you worked at had uninspiring and disrespectful members of the SLT who were behaving illegally, violent parents, ut of control students and a LA who had given up on it. It sounds like changing these factors resulted in the school's improvements.

All the research backs up your argument that good leadership, management, teaching and learning are what improves a school. There is nothing magical about academy status that guarantees these things (and plenty of evidence emerging that sponsored academy status certainly doesn't).