Academy Conversion Meeting This evening, any an vice very gratefully received.

[wanttomakeadifference]

DC's primary school have a consultation meeting this evening regarding converting to an academy.

I've done a bit of research and I personally feel that it would be a bad move for the school to convert.

I've spoken with a parent governor who agrees with me, but she confirmed my suspicions that it's pretty much a 'done deal' as the government are intent in pushing schools to convert.

She also told me that the Head takes little notice of the school's Board of Governors, tends to do what he wants, and that noone stands up to him. I feel this bodes particularly badly for a potential academy- as he will have even more power to make questionable decisions without being answerable to the LEA.

I would love some advice about all this. Is there any point in objecting? I'm worried about causing offence to the Board or The Head by making plain that I think loosing accountability to the LEA will be a bad thing.

PS
Before anybody takes umbrage.
I'm not out to pick a fight.
I have VERY, VERY serious concerns about the Academy Programme - both the Labour and Tory versions.

Both involve transferring the taxpayer funded education of our children to unelected unaccountable bodies and removing their accounts from public scrutiny.
Many LEAs had their faults, but you could at least vote to change the political hue at the top.
The converter academies have been spectacularly badly thought out.

Private schools hire Bursars who are expecting to have the buck stop at their door.
State schools hired admin officers who passed the buck to the LEA.
Under employment law, those people have magically become bursars.

In private schools, parents can vote with their feet and wallets if they are unhappy.
Not an option in state schools (outside the very large cities).

Gove's plans for oversight of failing academies are probably better understood by prh47bridge than by ANY of his staff.
They seem to think that good academies will magically stay good - when good LEA schools magically did not.

I fear for children currently in years 5,6 and 7 as they are going to get the brunt of this.

Oh dear...

The Companies Act does indeed recognise the concept of companies that are charities (usually referred to as charitable companies). Companies Act 2006 sections 21, 31, 42, 60, 181, 247, 395, 403, 407 and 1175. For what it is worth, sections 181 and 1175 specifically refer to these entities as charitable companies. The term therefore does exist in law. So, contrary to your assertion, there is such a thing as a charitable company under the Companies Acts.

Academies are not registered charities (indeed, nor are most PTAs). They therefore do not have charity numbers. They are charities nonetheless. Academies Act 2010 s12 states that any academy proprietor is a charity and that the proprietor must also be a company limited by guarantee whose object is a charitable purpose. So I stand by my statement - all academies are charities including the two schools you mention. The constitution of these companies precludes distribution of profits to members. That is the law.

Feel free to compare the full charity accounts with the Companies House accounts as per your own suggestion. You will find they are the same provided you have the right company. The company I mentioned IS Oxfam, it is not just something to cover their non-exempt trading. I could equally have given you the company numbers for Christian Aid, Shelter, Barnardo's or pretty much any other major charity (or, indeed, smaller charity but I wanted to pick one everyone knows). In every case the company IS the charity. Forming the charity as a company limited by guarantee gives the trustees the protection of limited liability, so they will not be personally ruined if the charity becomes insolvent. It is the normal form of organisation used for any charity that will have employees, enter into contracts or own freehold or leasehold property.

I don't see the relevance of your question about whether converter secondary schools were VA schools. You were suggesting that insurance for academies was a big problem as no-one was doing it before. The fact is that any VA school that was following the guidance in the Blue Book was already dealing with its own insurance, as indeed all the existing academies have been since they were founded. I therefore fail to see why this should suddenly be a huge problem for the new academies. They may not have been paying for insurance out of their own budget previously but they will receive additional funding to cover this and there are plenty of insurance companies (and, indeed, some LAs) willing to provide insurance at a reasonable price.

I also have some concerns about the academy programme and would be against conversion of my local school. However, I do not share many of yours.

Academy accounts have not been "removed from public scrutiny". They are very much available for public scrutiny - you can get them from Companies House or demand them from the school via an FoI request. I generally find it much harder to get accurate, detailed accounts for an LA-controlled school.

The governing bodies of the new academies will in general be identical to the governing body they had prior to conversion and will be elected in the same way. They are not unelected.

The plans for oversight of failing academies are not Gove's. They were put in place by the last government and have been used several times already. I would be very surprised if I understand those plans better than Gove's staff. I've only read about them. They have actually put them into practise.

P.S. I know you are not out to pick a fight. Neither am I. There are plenty of areas on which we agree!

You are right about the increased transparency in individual converter schools as the Companies House Accounts will show more than most LEAs tended to publish (Hampshire always showed lots, don't know why)

but looking up my favourite bugbear, Oasis Community Learning on Duedil, they amalgamate all of their academies into one set of accounts, showing (for example) 42 people in the company earning between £60k and £120k of whom 34 were in the teachers pension scheme
also it states that none of the directors get paid
BUT that it is linked to Oasis Community trust which has different directors and magically keeps all of its employees under the £60k disclosure route
so its VERY hard to work out who in central management is getting paid for what out of the schools.

And as chains take over more and more schools, transparency will diminish which I do not think anybody will consider a good thing.

I'll be interested to hear how the meeting went from the OP.

Her sense, confirmed by a governor, that conversion is a 'done deal' behind is all too common an occurrence.

Gove has very recently signed Chapel End Juniors school in Walthamstow, London over to a sponsor, though hasn't confirmed who the sponsor is. Ofsted viewed this as a 'good' school until Jan '12 when it went in to special measures (above the floor target in 2011), then 9 months later it gets taken our of local democratic control without so much as a by your leave.

Democracy in action, as a pp says.

Many thanks for all the information and opinions. I will post a proper update tomorrow, as to how the meeting went as ATM I only have a phone to post from.

I agree completely that it is harder with academy chains (or at least some of them) than with individual academies. And yes, Hampshire do seem to be better than most LAs regarding information published about schools.

See, I told you we agree on plenty of things!

OP, a friend of mine's secondary school in Brent (she's a teacher there) has just converted, ostensibly 'voluntarily'. Just over 50% of the staff and parents voted to convert.

The pros of conversion that they were given was 1. the school has a deficit and it needed to start making redundancies. The cash from conversion would put this off for a year (although no doubt that it will happen anyway) and 2. that lots of other local schools are converting and if they were the remaining LA school they'd be forced to take "all the children other schools don't want".

So the teaching staff and parents voted to convert. Whilst I don't blame them for succumbing to this bribery and bullying (and of course the cash for conversion is decreasing the longer schools hold out), I am left observing that they hardly seem to be enjoying the 'freedoms' that academy converters are promised.

I'm interested whether these were factors in your 'consultation'.

Rosebud A deficit was mentioned in my DD's school's 'consultation' process, as was the threat of redundancies. We have subsequently discovered via the school's financial report that the school was financially healthy when these claims were made. Also, we were told that extra money could be used to improve ICT provision when the financial report showed that a massive investment had just been made in this in any case (ie. before any extra money had ever materialised). We are in the situation at the moment where the school is awaiting LEA approval of its application for academy status. The head teacher has just resigned and since the vote in favour of academisation was taken (around April/May I believe) some of the 'pro-voting' governors have also left. So we're facing a conversion that was voted for by people who no longer have any connection with the school.

I can believe the deficit and redundancy threat even if the school looked ok this year. The government has more budget cuts planned for schools over the next few years, especially if there's a sixth form so things are only going to get worse.

No sixth form in DD's school. I think if the school wanted to present this as a possible future concern that would have been fair enough, but to paint an unnecessarily pessimistic picture of the school's current finances smacks of scaremongering. How can they be sure of what their finances will look like in the next few years if they go for academy status? Academy conversion has been depicted as this (thriving) school's salvation, despite the fact that it doesn't need saving as there's nothing currently wrong either with its finances or its levels of attainment.

That's awful, gold and unfortunately not a unusual story at the moment.

We were told, by the gungho Governor & the Head, that the LA planned to close us down & sell off the buildings & land. Our students would then go to (other local) schools B & C.

School B staff, we've since discovered, had been fed stories that we (&/or school C) were planning some sort of takeover on them & they needed to convert to be safe.

School C were told...well, you get the picture...

I hate, hate, hate this.

Despite all the guff about academy status being about 'school improvement' there's not a single shred of evidence to support this which, I guess, is why those with a vested interest have to resort to bullying or bribery.

In my experience, converter academies are very similar to the old grant maintained schools of the last Conservative government with the same benefits and warts. Academy chains though are a very different beast, they appear to be more about empire building than education. Ex local government, DFE and other miscellaneous officials who resided over our failed education system for the last 20 years are now finding themselves lucrative jobs (permanent or consultant) in academy chains where accountability is NIL.

Having read the comments in this thread I can identify with many of the complaints of deception and misinformation highlighted in them having been through the process three times.

Our education system appears to be just smokescreens and mirrors, who now can believe any of the data and statistics issued by government, DFE, political parties, exam boards, schools, chain academy groups or unions.

Our high school converted with no problems and with finanicial benefits. The 'Head' team is very strong and capable and work with the board of Governors. But OPs post set alarm bells ringing when she said that the Head Teacher took no notice of the Governors - in that situation, I wouldn't have wanted my school to convert.

Our primary school is in special measures - the governors (there is no full time head - last one resigned and due to the academy sword hanging over the school's head they cant recruit a new one) have been told to consider converting to an academy and that if they dont do it voluntarily it will be thrust upon the school - and they have to decide pretty much now. We (the parents) are against it - the staff are against it - but fear it is very much a done deal.

And all very lucrative for those left in control.

www.localschoolsnetwork.org.uk/2011/03/academy-chains-prove-to-be-a-lucrative-business/

This article is somewhat misleading. Outwood Grange Consultancy was formed and started trading over 3 years before the school converted to academy status.

The summary of this article is that the head teacher is well paid and also gets income from consultancy work. You could say exactly the same about some head teachers of LA-controlled secondary schools.

Yes. As academy chains are taking over from local authorities in a big way now I guess we all have to accept that education is now all about making money for chain staff, academy executive staff and consultants.

Chains even advertise for consultants now, it is as I say very lucrative but is it good for education!!!

www.academiesenterprisetrust.org/web-form/consultants

No, that is not what education is about. Academy chains are charities. They do not distribute their profits. However, they are free to pay high salaries to their staff if they think it appropriate.

None of this is particularly new. Roughly 20% of secondary school head teachers are paid over £100k and some staff working in education for LAs receive similarly high salaries. And I personally know half a dozen people who have become multi-millionaires by supplying equipment to state schools.

My experience too, is of any nod at "consultation" being a sham.

I went to the parents' meeting at my dd1's school. There were 40 - 50 parents there (despite the short notice) and all those who spoke - a considerable proportion - implied they were totally against the academy. It was interesting how many reasons people put forward, certainly not a gut reaction actinst change, but some really thoughtful comments. However, The Chair of Governors actually said theat they didn't have to take any note of parents thoughts / wishes / opinions. It was for the governing body to take the vote, and they alone.

That's absolutely correct re the sham of consultation.

And the DfE don't have to take any notice of anyone if they want a particular school to convert. The views of governors, local authority, parents, staff or community are irrelevant - only Michael Gove's counts. See my link to David Woolfe's blog up thread.

Similar experience.

Our Chair of Governors, when asked if parents or staff would be balloted:

'We don't need to take into account the opinions of parents or staff; that isn't what consultation means. We are only obliged to hear opinions at this consultation'.

They heard a pretty clear NO, fwiw. We've now been an Academy for a month.

I think what concerns me is that a group of my town's Secondary schools have just converted to an Academy Consortium. No backer, but how long will that last?

I brought up concerns at the meeting that the HT evaded.

My first concern was that I didn't want the uniform to change. I was assured that it wouldn't. It has. I was assured that uniform sales wouldn't go online only with added P&P pushing the price up for poorer pupils parents who can only put in multiple small orders rather than one big order, thus putting off poorer pupils from applying there and providing selection by the back door. Guess what has happened?

I asked who you would complain about wrt the school failing to discharge their duties towards pupils with SEN, as the LA did that before. I got no answer, despite the HT's assurance that she would find out and get back to me, and repeated attempts to chase her up.

I asked if the results would be published as individual school results or as results across the consortium. The answer was unclear, and still hasn't been resolved.

Other parents asked other good questions, but it was obvious that this was a done deal.

Consultation was in January this year, conversion happened on 1st September this year.

I now have NO choice to send my DC's to an Academy, unless they get into the super-selective Grammar. Which is annoying, as I moved to this area so that my DC's DIDN'T have to attend an Academy.