Academy Chains : chickens coming home to roost

[TalkinPeace]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/in-pictures-26335206

My biggest fear about academies has been the lack of transparent accountability.
At long last the policy twonks might have started to realise this.

Then again, how many chains will schools be passed between, and at what cost in SLA termination fees?
Maybe LAs should be allowed to bid for them ?

I'm not sure this move goes far enough though. They still have many schools under their control, and Gove is refusing to allow Ofsted to inspect them.

Not that Ofsted is necessarily the best option, ut it would be better than nothing.

Good heavens - academy chains not improving on Local Authorities?! Who would have believed it?!

Well, it will be interesting to see the latest 'individual' Ofsted inspections even if they are not allowed to inspect the chains themselves. One is for a free school (e.g. brand new academy rather than one inheriting problems of predecessor school). Doubly damning.

More in the Guardian.

How on earth can they be left in charge of the other schools if they are deemed so incapable of running 10 schools that they've been taken away from them? The lack of accountability for billions of pounds of public money that Gove's department is demonstrating is really frightening.

The BBC article seems to be saying it is poor educational performance, not poor financial management that was the problem. I don't quite get E-Acts point about geographical issues though - deliberate obfuscation or attempt at face-saving?

The affected schools haven't been officially announced. I wonder if they are schools with a long history of difficulties that simply haven't improved or whether there has been a decline?

This looks interesting ...one of the schools near me has just lost its sponsor because of investigations by the DFE into financial irregularities as it was about to convert to an academy ...it was a school in special measures that had made improvements since the change and now its all back to not knowing what the future holds ....

Edith I can't remember which ones now but there were five E-ACT schools judged inadequate before Christmas but at least two of them had been 'good' or had 'good capacity to improve' while under the LA before being taken over. And if the new free school (Hartsbrook?) has been rated inadequate it says it all.

The financial irregularities were investigated by the EFA last year. Why so long to inspect the performance of the chain after that?

I heard about it on the radio and wasn't wholly suprised.

I mean, in theory chains of schools should make sense (sharing provision, bulk buying etc)...but this chain seemed all wrong to me!

I find this really scary. I feel for all the families and teachers involved. What a mess.

Here is the statement from one of them
www.dartmouthacademy.org.uk/uploads/pdf/MEDIA%20RELEASE%20-%20Statement%20on%20E-ACT%20and%20Dartmouth%20Academy%20.pdf

I feel desperately sorry for the year 11 and year 13 pupils and their teachers
they did not ask to be taken over by a chain
they had no impact on this
www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-22571711
and yet it is their education that will be disrupted to fit with political ideology.

A shame about those "geographical problems." You see, what we really need is an authority overseeing these schools locally - you could, as a mere suggestion, call it a "Local Authority"... You could even make it politically accountable, and then you'll have less suspicion of financial irregularities and profiteering.

Oh, silly me - that's what we USED to have!

Ooo, get you and your crazy ideas rabbit

So when local authorities are totally defunct and all schools are academies, does that mean no more Ofsted?

Oh no, this means more and more Ofsted.

Or, more specifically, more and more private, unaccountable organisations which Ofsted contracts out to. It's all very... er... Tribal ...

Sorry, I was being a bit flippant. It is all so utterly dispiriting I can only hope for the demise of...

...Gove?

Lucky, lucky school ....
www.bordonpost.co.uk/news.cfm?id=6214&headline=Education%20minister%20visits%20school
www.petersfieldmessenger.com/news.cfm?id=6286
www.bohunt.hants.sch.uk/LatestNews.aspx?nid=0083.ascx
but look what was said a while back ...
www.theguardian.com/education/2012/sep/30/new-schools-smaller-coalition-budget

how long till the chains get their claws into converter schools?