Is Education for Sale?

[Nicky4HelCal]

My heart sank when I read that David Cameron declared at the Conservative Conference that all schools will be academies in 5 years time, and no local authority will run any schools. There are problems with education, not least teacher shortage, but converting all schools into academies and removing local oversight and parent involvement is not a solution to any problem - then I read that Nicky Morgan has invited businesses to be involved in schools. Sounds as though my local community secondary school will be forced to convert into an academy, despite parent wishes, and who knows who will run it - Poundland? Carphone Warehouse?

There isnt really a recruitment crisis, but there is definitely a retention crisis which is more worrying.

I wonder how the support provided by local authorities will be delivered. Will local authorities still be expected to provide some backup to local schools or will they be cast adrift, dependent on the sponsor/trust? At the moment they provide ad hoc support for LA schools, for example expertise if a pupil suddenly dies or an advisor to help after an inadequate ofsted rating.

How will they influence the pressure on school places?

I'm certainly no expert, but local authorities do something and I am concerned that there will be a void as their central budget disappears. And of course the pupils who will suffer from this will be the most vulnerable.

How do you find the conditions and expectations, Wash? How does it compare to state schools?

I work in an Academy too. No one wanted it, but we converted. Terms and conditions are exactly the same, although we do have a couple of twilight classes,so teaching until 5 one night a week. But they give you that time back.

Appreciate jot all academies are like this though

I've sent in my letter - let's see whether the Evening Standard will publish. If anyone else wants to send a letter you can e-mail [email protected].

I think there is room for all kinds of schools, and there are good community schools and good academies, just as there are schools that need to improve - except there does not seem to be any acknowledgement that academies fall into this category too. I don't think anyone voted for the complete dismantling of our national education system.

Pico2 makes a good point, as I believe local authorities will still have an obligation to ensure every child has a school place. They can do this now as they can give directions to community schools (ie booster classes), but they cannot give directions to academies, and academies are free to design their own selection policies.

The area I live in has just put in a Devolution bid to the Government.
They are trying to devolve and integrate all services in the area to save on back office and enhance co operation
but they are not allowed to talk to the Academy Schools about linking education and work and lifelong skills training

which shows that the academy programme is a bad joke

voting labour will not help : it was Labour who brought even more PFI and "market" into schools and hospitals and everything else
Labour did nothing about housing

there is NO party in the UK that has a clue IMHO

Education is being centralised under DfE, with Regional Education Boards, who have targets to convert a certain number of schools into academies. This last point became clear under a Freedom of Information request, and was referenced by Labour's Kevin Brennan, during Committee stages of the Education & Adoption Bill.

but
they have no remit to make sure there are enough school places for every child in the area

they have no remit to provide education that meets the needs of the area

they have no remit for transparency and accountability

some London LEAs were not great, but that is not a reason to declare war on all of them

the Labour Academy programme was a shit idea

the only reason London Academies have improved is that they get nearly twice as much money per pupil as schools in the rest of the country
its not the Academy status,
its the cash

I couldn't agree with you more TalkinPeece - but this is what is happening under our noses.

I feel helpless, I want to do something, and a lone voice is a lost voice. There isn't a union representing parents, so I have recently joined Campaign for State Education. We need to call a halt to this government's plans for our schools.

You can only halt something by having a better plan in place

campaigns are all hot air in my book

I plan to work with my local devolution bid who will be putting massive financial pressure from high up for change

This isn't a UK-wide thing, as intimated up thread. It's not happening in Scotland - don't know about NI and Wales. It's important to make that distinction, as in Scotland we have schools called, for example, Anytown Academy and Anytown Grammar, but all secondaries are comprehensive and run by the local authority (apart from one).

Good luck TalkinPeece with your campaign!

Why would any company invest in a school?

Well the reason we did it in the company I worked for was as part of a general outreach idea. Lots of parents worked for the company and we had engineers and project managers and lots of other people who could help the teachers out in various ways.

The local authority could take weeks to answer an IT query at the local primary, we could give them an answer in an hour.

We had teenagers from the local secondary schools in for work experience.

We brought teachers in - especially IT/Technology in to shadow for a week.

HR dropped in to schools to discuss careers and we had a fair number of recent graduates who could answer questions about university.

There are lots of things we could have done if we had actually run the school, logistics would have been better, secretarial work could have been sent to our offices, IT would have been modernised even if they got our cast offs. Software costs would have dropped - we had company wide licenses. Better printing capabilities.

These are all things that could be done by large companies in partnership with schools, but the dead hand of the LAs insist everyone has to get the same poor service lest they lose control and they become redundant.

but the dead hand of the LAs insist everyone has to get the same poor service lest they lose control and they become redundant.

How did your company help with the PE and art Curricula?

What expertise can a corporation bring for children with SEN? I think they can be badly served in some academies.

As a parent i agree and like to see more private companies' inputs and cooperation with our state schools to make our school education more up-to-date and relevant to employment. BUT I do not want our schools to be owned and controlled by any private companies. Havent we learned enough from our experience re the carehomes or even the RI academies (originally RI schools)? Our children are very vulnerable members of society.

How did your company help with the PE and art Curricula?

Not much really, there were certainly people who were competent at sport, the only ones I actually can remember were involved in county tennis and she helped with a couple of kids who wanted better tuition, and a Tae Kwan Do instructor who encouraged some of the kids.

Arts I was never involved with but we had Human Factors people who could well have been involved at some level.

It was always our intention just to help out where we could. But then again we did provide money and manpower to help them. We built the local primary a garden - all that really took was a few people over a couple of weekends.

These days you would think all of the local schools would be trying to get companies with large software and electronics teams to come and help, but its generally been initiatives coming from the companies. I've never seen a local education authority ask.

the only reason London Academies have improved is that they get nearly twice as much money per pupil as schools in the rest of the country

London schools generally get more cash than schools in the rest of the country so why haven't they all improved as quickly as the academies? It is not the cash. Research has shown that there is absolutely no link whatsoever between the level of funding a school receives and its results.

Research has shown that there is absolutely no link whatsoever between the level of funding a school receives and its results.

Really? That sounds like bollocks to me. You wouldn't expect a school that could afford fantastic resources and great teachers to get better results than some shabby shack cobbling a curriculum out of ancient textbooks?

Research has shown that there is absolutely no link whatsoever between the level of funding a school receives and its results.

Honestly? So a science teacher with run down broken equipment can teach as well as one with a full class set of everything?
An English teacher can teach just as well without a class set of text?
A reception class can be just as good without paper, paint and toys?

That must be why all the state schools are achieving just as good results as all the super expensive private schools then.

That sounds like bollocks to me

The research appears to be sound and the figures are in the public domain. It suggests that the quality of teaching is far more important than the premises, textbooks, etc.

That sounds suspiciously like Hattie to me, with whom I have a few issues.

Quality of teaching is important, yes. But if more funding doesn't get better results, then what on earth are they spending the money on?

My department lost a teacher this year due to budget cuts. We have bigger classes (another thing Hattie says doesn't matter which is bollocks) everyone is more frazzled, we don't have as much money for intervention. No way is this not going to affect our results.

The research appears to be sound and the figures are in the public domain.

Who funded the research?
It sounds rather like one of those pieces of research saying that sugar is fine and Coke will make you more virile that are funded by the sugar council and Coke.

Yes of course quality of teaching is important and a good teacher can teach well in difficult circumstances, but that doesn't mean that they couldn't teach better in better circumstances.