Can you explain 'Academies' to me

[Twiglett]

why are secondary schools now academies

why do they specialise in things

if a school specialises in sport what does that mean?

what about the rest of the curriculum and academia?

.. oh and are single sex secondaries better for boys or girls or neither or both?

thanks

if a school gets specialist status, it usually means they get more funding for that particular area of the curriculum.
my dc's school is a technology specialist school.
i personally think single sex secondaries are better from the point of view that there are no opposite sex distractions at school.
i dont know why they choose to specialise in things.

Twig - our catchment secondary is a Sports Academy. They've had a good amount of money thrown at them and have used it to develop the sports side of the curriculum. Hand in hand with that though other areas have been improved too, the buildings themselves, IT & Science.

The downside for us personally is that the GCSE PE is compulsory (although it can be Dance for the girls) and 2 of my 3 aren't very sporty.

In my view the move towards academies is purely for financial reasons. It's pretty pointless unless the way places are allocated changes. Ds1 isn't sporty but we couldn't get him into our next nearest secondary as it's out of catchment and oversubscribed. And our catchment school can't choose children based on their sporting ability. So what's the point?

There have been benefits for the community though as all the sports facilites are available to the public in the evening and holidays (for a price!) Although we wouldn't get similar benefits for the community if the school was a Maths academy would we?

Don't have a clue about single sex schools - sorry.

I think it is strangely random as the children who go are not necessarily those with the aptitiy=ude for that area of the curriculum

we presently have a single sex girls school which is a sports academy (great facilities although not very well rated)

they are going to open a single sex boys school which is also a sports academy

I think the plan is to share resources but have separate heads I think

it makes no sense to me .. if they're sharing resources why doesn't one be sports excellence with facilities and the other be science or technology or arts etc?

Sports is probably where the money is.

And we supposed to have more parental choice !

but what do kids who aren't sporty get out of it?

here there is sport, science art and language but it makes no sense as the children don't particulalry match the specialisms..so at the art one they have to do two art gcses

Errr nothing Twig. My non-sporty ds got a C for GCSE PE - he'd have been better served doing Food Technology.