Academies

[KatharineH]

''The education secretary, Nicky Morgan, has vowed to “sweep away bureaucratic and legal loopholes” obstructing the takeover of as many as 1,000 struggling local authority schools in England and their rapid conversion into academies.''

''Today’s landmark bill will allow the best education experts to intervene in poor schools from the first day we spot failure. It will sweep away the bureaucratic and legal loopholes previously exploited by those who put ideological objections above the best interests of children,” Morgan said.''
As well as 'failing' schools, it would be for 'coasting' schools, I suppose those who are 'in need of improvement'.

I think that it is for ideological reasons that this government is seeking to take out every school from local authority control.

What do others think? Has your school been improved by being an academy? Or have you had other experiences?

I think teachers don't like academies because their unions have less power in them and they can employ non qualified teachers. They can also chose not to follow the national curriculum. My niece and nephew attend an academy and they and their parents are happy with it .
I am not saying all academies are good, of course they're not, but neither are all local authority schools. Local councils hold too much money back for all the"advisors" and back office stuff that nobody wants.

What makes a school a good school? There is evidence that a lot depends upon the money that it receives.

Doesn't academies get some extra funding when first set up? When my local comp. turned into an academy, there was funding specifically for new buildings, which apparently wouldn't have been available otherwise.

Has any failing school been 'turned around' by throwing more money at it?

Just look at Nicky Morgan dodging the question of how many failing academies there are. Her eyes get starier, she starts gabbling...

www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-32987826

All, the research in academic performance concludes that money and class size is unimportant.

There is evidence that a lot depends upon the money that it receives

I'm sorry but that is just plain wrong. The evidence is that performance is unrelated to funding.

Doesn't academies get some extra funding when first set up

An academy receives some funding towards the cost of conversion. This is normally insufficient to cover the full cost. It also receives some additional funding to cover the cost of services it no longer receives from the LA.

I think it's unfair to blame the local population being thick fo a school failing. There are outstanding schools in deprived areas. I don't believe that there are areas where the children are too stupid to learn. However there area where there is a history of low expectations. In my daughter's school teachers failed to challenge the more able children and did not believe in them.

I am in favour of having primaries in small clusters with a truely outstanding super head. My daughter's school had not been rated good for five years yet it had not been academised inspite of having an inadequate rating until recently. I feel that leas are sometimes too big to allow heads to support each other.

What actually happens, however, is that a truly outstanding head is stretched too thin.

reallytired - if that was in response to my comment - I wasn't saying kids are too thick to learn - I was suggesting that for sections of the population the stuff they get taught at school has very little relevance to them. Or at least it isn't presented to them in a way that highlights the relevance to them. I think that is particularly the case for maths.

I think the obsession with exams and levels, doesn't benefit many individuals, and fails a lot of them when the whole systems depends on "success" at those particular criteria. If a school is deemed at "failing" because they don't manage to get their particular population to excel at that narrow assessment - maybe we should be looking at what we are aiming at instead of wholesale changing the management of the school.

Personally I think the teaching to the test approach of the national curriculum doesn't grab a large number of kids (or teachers come to that), and that is why they "fail". Find something that interests them, teach the useful skills using those interests as the basis - and voila - they don't fail - they thrive - their self confidence grows and suddenly you have success.

A lot of kids learn very early on (in our current system) that they aren't "good enough" and they take that through with them. In exams especially a huge amount of success is down to self belief - if you think you can do it, you approach it with a good attitude (and vice versa).

So in summary - I think the academy/free school/ LA school is a total (expensive and divisive) red herring.

Helpfully, Schoolsweek has found answers to the questions Nicky Morgan refused to answer:

'133 academies rated as inadequate ... 28 schools were good or outstanding when they first converted to academy status but have subsequently fallen into special measures. It means pupils in those schools have spent over 7,548 days in a failing academy ...'

"reallytired - if that was in response to my comment - I wasn't saying kids are too thick to learn - I was suggesting that for sections of the population the stuff they get taught at school has very little relevance to them. Or at least it isn't presented to them in a way that highlights the relevance to them. I think that is particularly the case for maths.
"

This could be percieved as dumbing down. Ie. Working class children need vocational learning and really should know their station in life.

The reality is that you can not effectively design a curriculum or decide what is relevent on a population level. Most of us only use 5% of what we learn at school and the problem is know what 5% is irrelevent for a child.In a school full of working class children some children children will be suited to menial unskilled work, some children with be suited to skilled jobs like a car mechanic, hair dresser, plumber where as a few children might be capable of becoming a doctor, MP or some other high flying career. A school that fails to challenge its most able children is inadequate and unfairly cuts off children from opportunities in life.

Academies have the freedom to organise their school day and the even their curriculum to suit their population. The national curriculum becomes a guidence document rather than law.

I said nothing about working class ! Or any other class - just about kids that fit the current curriculum, and those that don't (of which there are very many).

my point is not vocational - but targeted to interest.

Example if kids love football - teach them maths with examples related to football. Read stuff about football. Look at football in foreign languages. Look at the ecosystem of a football pitch - what nutrients are needed for good grass. Look at the way the body works - what makes a good footballer, what food do they need etc.

No way dumbing down, but very much making it relevant and interesting.

Doesn't have to be football - any number of interests could be used - but the point is put it in a context that is relevant. Group kids by their interests maybe, and then teach using examples for their interest.

Another example - (stereotypes !) - girls like fashion - look at fabrics - what materials are needed - where they come from. What chemicals or plants go into hair dyes, or mascara and why. The maths of concentrations of hair dyes - and so on.

That is what we don't do, regardless of who is in control of the school.

and I am pretty certain that our current system rarely challenges the most able kids either.

But, ReallyTired, with the Department for Education designing the exam system and telling all schools how they will be judged and which qualifications count and which are frowned upon, how much real freedom is there to create your own curriculum?? Surely, at the end of the day, you still have to have taught the syllabus expected in order to pass the exams required? What real freedom do you have, therefore, that schools subject to the national curriculum don't have?

It seems to me, the minute schools start to look too different, we start learning that, eg, all schools must teach British Values... or are academies exempt from this?...

throckenholt - you are describing the way many primary schools (LA maintained and academy) teach the curriculum.

I worked at a special school which became an academy. They were able to introduce a subject called skills on the time table. During "skills" time there were mixed year groups where children could do courses in extra literacy, extra numeracy, handwriting, typing skills, PE (if the child was overweight), anger management and there were couses for the more able who were capable of mainstream work in some subjects. Not all children in a complex needs special school require anger management, but a few of the children really benefitted from daily anger management lessons. Having time on the timetable to sort out issues improved academic sucess across all subjects. Its impossible to teach a child to read if they want to throw a chair at the teacher.

A primary school academy has a slightly longer day and has Friday afternoon off. They provide onsite childcare for working parents. This means that there are fewer random INSET days and teachers can have meetings and training when they are fresh.

A secondary school near me has different pathways dependent on a child's reading and numeracy ablities. I have to admit that I avoided that school because I did not agree in seperating children into grammar, secondary modern and special school pathways. However some parents want that kind of system. It is a way of providing a grammar school type education without inflicting it on the rest of us who don't believe in selection at eleven. The parents have absolutely no idea whether their child is deemed secondary modern material until they actually start the school, which can cause rupture.

I feel that academies do have more potential to improve the education system. Its a brave and new world. If not a little frightening. I feel that systems for monitoring quality of academies needs to be more robust to prevent more trojan horse scandels.

The primary school academy near me also arranges its SEN support on the Friday afternoon so that children do not need to be dragged out of lessons to do extra literacy. They also have the pepipertic music teachers come on a Friday afternoon.

Infact there would be a lot to do be said in giving LEA school academy type freedoms.

There is no evidence that Academies make anything better.

Precisely. In fact based on Ofsted statistics, 46% are failing.

I get it that failing academies are supposed to be moved to new sponsors. What happens when they continue to fail?

I wouldn't be too impressed if my child only got SEN support on Friday afternoons. That's the point in the week when he was most tired and least receptive to learning.

But, ReallyTired, you seem to think LA schools have less freedom than they actually do. There really isn't much at all in what you describe that a LA school wouldn't be allowed to do if it really wanted to. So I'm still confused. It seems to me the best schools could be LA maintained OR academy and I'm afraid I am utterly unconvinced that academising a school will automatically transform it from a pile of shite to a pot of gold as Nicky Morgan seems to believe.

And, obviously, in any event, the other side of any freedom coin is, of course, the freedom to be utterly atrocious. Nicky Morgan wants to free up awful schools to give them the potential to be even more awful.

Hi prh47bridge. You seem very knowledgeable. Do you have any expertise?

I read about some studies. It found that there were very small benefits with extra funding. www.parliament.uk/documents/commons-committees/Education/Impact-of-school-spending-on-pupil-attainment.pdf

But the why are schools really keen to increase their funding by any means? Most 'bog-standard' comprehensives specialised in some subject, for the extra funding. A few schools expect the parents to give a regular donation. Every school has some king of fundraising in place.

Does any of the research look beyond attainment in exams and tests? It seems a shame that things that cannot easily (or accurately) be measured tend to be ignored - eg resilience, adaptability, resourcefulness and mental health.

throckenholt - you are describing the way many primary schools (LA maintained and academy) teach the curriculum. confused

rabbitstew - does it match what happens in secondary as well ?

It seems a shame that things that cannot easily (or accurately) be measured tend to be ignored - eg resilience, adaptability, resourcefulness and mental health.

It's because they can't easily be measured and quantified that they are ignored. Can't stick them in a spreadsheet and compare.

Same with skills and understanding - only a little bit of that is captured in a written exam.