Should I be delighted or horrified or indifferent that the LEA wants to close the local sink school and turn it into an academy?

[LittleBella]

I've heard 2 things about them:

1. They're built in crap areas (like mine) and provide an opportunity for working class children to be properly educated.

2. The criteria for getting in are so opaque that only the well-informed middle classes can get their children in and they're even more selective than grammars.

So, what's the real deal? Currently in this area, it's the 11+ and DS either gets into a grammar or we move (seriously, the local sink school is one of the worst in the whole country, not just the county). Will the appearance of an academy be relevant to him or not?

same as any other school, really: depends on who is running it. It could be good for your child, but bad as a general trend.

I am horrified by them on political grounds. So, the gov't admits that some schools are crap. So they wring their hands and find a rich person to take over, absolving themselves of responsibility? Er, no.

Little Bella, I live in HAckney. We have such bad secondary schools...until...
The Academy Show came to town. THey are so sought after now and a lot fewer kids are having to trek all over london to get to a school without guns in it. I am dead against the idea of private money in public schools, private sponsors with a say in curricululm, governors, teachers, even admission criteria, BUT they have meant that where we previously had gang land nightmares, we now have brand shining fabulous schools with state of the art facilities, good staff and student moral, and generally much happiness all round.

As for admission criteria - some of them can be opaque, if you listen to all the rumour and hearsay, but just get yourself on their website, and if the ones I've been looking at are anything to go by - its pretty straightforward.

SO to answer your Q, I was initially horrified at our academies, but then when I saw the alternatives, I was relieved, now I have seen the academies, I am totally delighted.

don't listen to gossip about them, find out for yourself - they are so political that everyone has an agenda with regard to them I think. Just trust your instincts and good luck!

I don't know whether to support it or not.

There's a consultation going on. Meetings being held. MP's being written to.

Blah.

one thing I would say baout them is that whilst the government retains responsibility, and accountability for the academies, they do not actually retain the control. so that1s a problem. But if its trhe only way your local council can get the funds to build new schols...wwhat can you do?

There can be a lot of money that follows Acadamy ststus, and while money does solve all a school's problems, I sure can help!

It's not just sink schools turning into academies, look here...

I wonder what the parents are making of this one.

hysterical.
I would love to be a fly on the wall at the mums coffee morning after they got that letter!

I think the parents might have turned the letter into a fly swat, olala...

Tis my old school btw.

how do you feel about it?

And I wonder why the school's owners are doing it? Money?
I suppose if you send your kids to be educated in a business, then you have to expect that that business will make plans based on financial good sense rather than what may or may not be what the parents wanted. Not knowcking private school at all btw, just considering sending my ds to one, but this highlights one of my key concerns about the whole thing.

Just watch it carefully and learn all you can. Who knows what it will be like?

We were sent a "consultation" for the building of an academy in our area in Manchester. The "consultation" consisted of two questions. Along the lines of:

"Would you like your children to have a good education? Answer yes/no."

"Do you think there should be more or better schools in your local area? Answer yes/no."

And that was it. And if we said yes it counted as voting towards an academy.

I did email the council to complain about the "consultation" but never received a reply. Which has all left me rather unimpressed with the consultation procedures.

I'm highly amused by the whole thing, olala (something to do, no doubt, with being unable to afford private education myself ). It was one of the direct grant schools that went reluctantly independent in the Seventies, so it is possible that the change to city academy status has been done for reasons of wishing to reflect the school's original purpose. Interesting that selection is having to go - many of my fellow pupils were leaving Catholic schools that were going comprehensive.

Having now had time to get over the initial hilarity (and thinking how some of the ultra-snooty girls and families in my day would have reacted) I'm not so sure the move is a good thing. What happens now to bright girls in that area that the state sector is failing (as happened to me)? Perhaps the state sector round there has improved so that no longer happens. Maybe the private sector's expanded and there's another possibility out there (there used not to be). Perhaps the school believes it can still provide for that group while dropping selection? I'm a bit .

Let this be a warning to others about idly looking up their old schools on Wikipedia...

I would be very aware/wary of the timescale. We are in the middle of consultation too: the plans here are (probably - not that they've made up their minds already of course ):
Expand schools A and B timescale 2009-2011
Build new Academy School C 2011-2012
Close and demolish schools X, Y, and Z 2012

My boys are due to be at secondary 2008-2013 and 2010-2015. Any major re-organisation like this causes massive upheaval to staff and students. Though the end results may be worth it the guinea pigs who have to cope with transition often suffer.

My boys will be going elsewhere.

i got a letter about one near me, we have 3 non selective schools, 1 good, 2 rubbish. so they want to close the 2 bad ones at the end of this year, with plans to expand the good one, which may at some point in the future become an academy. it wont be expanded in time so they will have to operate from one of the old schools which is a good 30 minutes walk away. i dont really understand the point of this tbh, the 2 bad ones are only half full so i could understand closing one of them to fill the other. but why plan to expand the other and disrupt pupils from all 3 schools well before they have actually managed to do it. i think they are counting on academy money to expand it but they dont know if or when they will get it.

it just seems like they havce thought failing schools - build an academy. they dont seem to think there is any other way round it. i am horrified, ds1 has AS and i realy dont want to send him to an enormous school, i dont think he will cope.

the good school was a rubbish school 15 years ago, it has totally turned around. maybe whatever they did could be applied to the other schools instead.

Just to add further humour to my little aside, it's Hyacinth Bucket's old school too!

(Well, the actress who played her...)

at fennel's "consultation". Outrageous!

Of course, it's easy to fiddle GCSE results by "persuading" less able students not to take particular subjects, and also by steering people towards those which count as two. The latter will be less easy from this year with the "core" subjects having to count towards the percentages.

But doesn't consultation generally mean "piss off, we've already made the decision, but we have to pretend you plebs have had a say in it, so tick one of the boxes, if you have a pen"?

I think you're right about that. Although they think more along the lines of "if you can hold a pen."

There is some pressure on the school I teach in to become an academy.

They do tend to be built in areas of deprivation, the town I teach in is a knownw area of deprivation.

I don't think we will become an academy as the needs of the community in which we teach are so great it is not thought that an academy would meet them.

Maths and English results have to be below 30% for a school to become an academy.

They can create their own admissions policy which is where the problems lie as well as changing terms of service overnight which is why they tend to be unpopular with teachers as well as the links with big business.

I have mixed feelings about academies TBH, I teach in a school which is in dire need of money so it seems at first glance an attractive option but not one that suits us at first glance.

I think acadamies are a way of the goverment finally facing the fact that they an't get education right and they want to hand over the responsibility.

Many LEAS are just caving in to academies and without them there is no way of accessing much needed money. I do think that the goverment is forcing schools into bankruptcy and then waving a shiny academy at them.

Most of these amazing turnaround GCSE passes just mean lots of kids taking easier GCSE or a towards a qualification that ends up in a mutiple GCSE result as UnquietDad says. We always have a chuckle at the tricks local schols get up to to fix their results. That is why schools now have to quote their english and maths results and I think that will also include science as well in the future.

There are now trust schools appearing as well as academies, once again diverting control and responsibilty gradually away from the LEA or government control.